Eric Holder

The responsibility of the attorney general is to change things and bring us closer to the ideals expressed in our founding documents.

When it comes to police officers, I have concerns about the training that they receive. This whole notion of implicit bias, looking at people and having stereotypical reactions to them on the basis of their ethnicity.

Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.

I don't even talk about whether or not racial profiling is legal. I just don't think racial profiling is a particularly good law enforcement tool.

People feel uncomfortable talking about racial issues out of fear that if they express things, they will be characterized in a way that's not fair. I think that there is still a need for a dialogue about things racial that we've not engaged in.

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.

Smart on Crime says if you commit violent crimes, you should go to jail, and go to jail for extended periods of time. For people who are engaged in non-violent crimes - any crimes, for that matter - we are looking for sentences that are proportionate to the conduct that you engaged in.

I'm a prosecutor first and foremost, and as a judge, I put people in jail for extended periods of time when that was appropriate.

It is the thing that keeps me up at night - the notion that you have individuals in the United States who are looking at computer screens and who are becoming radicalized.

Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square... I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do.

It pains me whenever there's the death of a law enforcement official.

I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I will enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us.