Our country has an opportunity to live up to our title as the leaders of the free world and to live up to our potential as being a beacon of freedom and hope and democracy - but not while that opportunity is not equal for everyone.
Texans and independent voters like to vote for somebody who is going to buck the status quo, and isn't going to do as he is told.
I'm not a big fan of dealing with stereotypes because I think everybody's unique and I have met plenty of people who have bucked their stereotypes. But there are things that women are physiologically better suited to.
I had medevacked so many women off the battlefield that I knew that it was a misnomer to say that women weren't in combat. I had friends that were Marines that were taken to fight the enemy. They weren't just firing in defense of their position.
We need to have leaders that aren't afraid to go against the grain to call out failures in leadership.
I would argue that growing up in a Republican area actually makes me a lot more of a viable candidate than someone who is going to demonize and alienate someone who used to be a Republican or used to vote Republican.
Ted Cruz cut his teeth politically in Texas on disrupting the Republican establishment, and Texans love a fighter. It's the same thing that has made me successful is that when people look at me, they see a fighter, somebody who takes on the establishment, who isn't intimidated, and is willing to kick through doors.
In the military, we are thrown into a melting pot of cultures and communities and we disagree a lot on how to accomplish the mission, but when it comes time to get the work done, we focus our energy on accomplishing the mission.
There's a reason that you hear something like 90 percent of our country wants universal background checks, but we can't get it passed legislatively. If we had a true representative democracy, 90 percent of our elected officials would want universal background checks.
The reasons I put the uniform on are the same reasons I'm running for office.
If we elect people who have never been to public school, never had to worry about counting on Social Security, then how can they effectively legislate?
And I'm used to being underestimated and I'm used to taking on tough fights and winning.
I am for the Second Amendment, but I am for common-sense gun legislation.
I mean that I consider myself a feminist. I think anybody who thinks women and men should be treated equally is a feminist, whether or not they know it.
We have the tools to be a stronger nation than we were before Sept. 11, 2001. We have learned valuable lessons about the danger of growing enemies and the importance of developing alliances.
My district doesn't come to vote to the polls against something because they fear something. They will come to the polls to vote for something because they are inspired by something.
We take responsibility for being firearm owners. We take responsibility for whose hands those guns get into.
I've voted in a Republican primary in the past. That's something unique to Texas and a handful of other states, that we don't register as Republicans or Democrats. We vote in whichever primary we think it's more critical at the time.
A lot of people ask why I don't fly for the airlines now. It's because of the rebel in me that doesn't like rules.
I'm a medevac pilot. I have spent time suppressing wildfires and things like that. And as a combat pilot, I tend to find the biggest bucket of water I can find and put it on the biggest fire I can find, right?
