I'm trying to fight so that people can have better.
— Richard Ojeda
If you have a great idea, I'll support your great idea. But if you don't have a great idea, I won't.
Back when I was in high school, being a Republican was like cursing. Republicans were greedy people who didn't take care of the workingman.
The coal industry in West Virginia, when it is down, people can't buy cars; people can't eat in restaurants. Everything suffers.
Get rid of Betsy DeVos.
I will not take corporate money. I don't want it.
There's a purpose for me. And my purpose is to wake people up.
I come from a family of coal miners.
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.
Big Pharma's the Taliban... They're Al Qaeda.
When President Kennedy come to West Virginia, he spoke about West Virginia and the people that gave the people here pride. And my family, my father remembers when President Kennedy was in Logan County and at places like the smokehouse, standing on chairs, talking to people.
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.
Put me in a room with 50 people, and I guarantee you 48 them are going to walk out saying, 'Ojeda's my guy.'
The reason why the Democratic Party fell from grace is because they become nothing more than elitist. That was it. Goldman Sachs - that's who they were.
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.
If all you have is coal, that's the only thing that we have. Don't hate the coal miner for trying to get the only decent job that we have in West Virginia that can allow them to feed their family.
When I retired from the military, I come home. And the reason why I got into politics is, you know, I spent a lot of time away from my wife and my kids. And I come home, and I found out I have kids in my backyard that have it worse than the children I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I'm a stubborn individual.
I'm nothing but a ball of energy.
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.
You want to win races? You've got to get out there, and you've got to be vocal, and you've got to work. When you win, you've got to actually represent. You've got to be willing to fight your party.
Once I got into politics, I saw the real fight, where big money controls everything, and where politicians care more about campaign contributions than the people they're supposed to represent.
When the rich wage war, it's the poor who fight and die.
We need to diversify our economy, but I also think we still have a future in coal.
Families in Logan, West Virginia, were going through the same struggles as families in the Bronx, San Francisco, and Houston. This was not a West Virginia problem. This is an American problem, and it has to change.
If you look at Middle America and the reason why it's so red is because the Democratic Party cannot relate to them. They definitely have not done anything to support people from where I come from in West Virginia.
Where I come from, Big Pharma's the enemy.
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 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 will stand with unions wholeheartedly, and that's the problem - the Democratic Party wants to say that, but their actions do not mirror that.
The Democratic Party needs to take a stand against corporate greed.
I'm trying to stand up so that the middle class, the working class, can finally have a say. I put them as my No. 1 priority.
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.
Successful leaders surround themselves with intelligent people.
Just because I support somebody doesn't necessarily mean I'll agree with them always. If they do not do something that's correct, I have the right to make comment.
In Iraq, I listened to David Petraeus speak every day about how we had to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure and protect it. But, if we're going to go trillions of dollars in debt over Iraq, why can't we go billions of dollars in debt and make every single coal-producing plant clean in West Virginia?
I ran in the reddest state of the United States of America. I turned almost 35 percent of the people that voted for Donald Trump back to voting for a Democrat.
My state was blue through and through. The reason why my state went red is because my state is a hard labor state, and the Democratic party pulled pitch and ran away from this place and left our people to fend for themselves with nothing.
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.
That border wall's not going to put one single West Virginian to work.
I was raised here in Logan County, where I was blessed to be in a family that had over 200 years of United Mine Workers of America experience.
The coal miners are working. But there's more than just coal miners in West Virginia.
I come from the coal fields.
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.
The sun doesn't always shine in West Virginia, but the people do.
I hate the idea of telling a woman what to do with her body.
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.
I believe that if we are going to create jobs in this country, then let's create jobs that will absolutely put the working-class people at work to the point where they have one job. They don't have to work three because they have to work Wendy's, McDonald's, and Walmart to survive.
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.
I spent 24 years in the United States Army.
