U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders swept through Iowa over the weekend, reviving his 2016 call for a "political revolution" with three rallies across the state.

Sanders took no questions from reporters or audience members at rallies in Council Bluffs, Iowa City or Des Moines. But he did lay out his vision for his second presidential campaign in an exclusive interview with the Des Moines Register on Thursday.

Here are his responses to five questions from that interview:

Register: Do you think you need to reintroduce yourself and your ideas to Iowans?

Bernie: I don’t think I have to reintroduce myself. If my memory is correct, I think we did 100 events in Iowa (in 2016). That’s a lot of events. So I think I am pretty well known in the state. And that’s a difference between 2016. But having said that, there are a lot of strong candidates who are running. Last time, I had one opponent; now, I’ll have 10 or 15 opponents. And my job is to convince the people of Iowa that I am, in the caucuses, at least, the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump. And I think I am.

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R: How will this campaign be different?

B: We had to put together our (last) campaign really very, very rapidly. That 2016 campaign was criticized for being too male-oriented, for being too white. And I think those were valid criticisms. And I think what the people of America will see in this campaign is a much more diverse campaign in every sense of the word. And I think that’s the right thing and a good thing.

R: Your earliest 2020 campaign events showcased more of your personal narrative. How much of that can we expect to see in Iowa?

B: A lot of politicians spend all of their lives talking about themselves and their backgrounds and their families and all that stuff. And sometimes, that hides the fact that their policies end up reflecting the interests of the billionaire class and Wall Street and corporate America. So you can be a really nice person and yet the policies you have will work against ordinary folks. We have some really lovely people who have great family backgrounds who want to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and give tax cuts to millionaires. I think we see too much of that.

But I think, on the other hand, my background, for example, is very different from Donald Trump's. When Trump was a little kid, his family put away $200,000 a year for him as an allowance. Well, I got 25 cents a week as an allowance. My family was a working-class family. My father was a paint salesman and never made much money. I grew up in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn. I remember where I came from, and that's something I have never forgotten, and I think that is an important characteristic and something I will talk about.

R: With more candidates aligning with specifics of your policy agenda, how will you stand out in history's most crowded and diverse field of Democratic contenders?

B: I’m very proud — this is where I want to thank Iowa: It’s not an accident that other candidates have adopted the positions that I held in 2016, which were then considered to be radical and extreme. They’re now mainstream and supported by a majority of the people in this country. ... So I'm proud of that and I think all I would ask of Iowans is check my record. Find out who was talking about those issues when it wasn’t so easy to talk about it, when those ideas were not so popular. Who was taking on the pharmaceutical industry for 25 years? I was.

R: Last time, you packed your Iowa campaign schedule with multiple events a day. What can we expect your schedule and events to look like this time?

B: I'm a hard worker. And when we go out, you know it’s a big country. When you go to a state — whether it's Iowa or California or any place else — if you go there, let's get the work done. But it's a combination of a couple things: It’s not only doing three, four, five rallies in a day — we will be doing that — but it’s also meeting with folks who have individual concerns. I want to spend more time talking to senior citizens in Iowa. Those rallies may not have zillions of people coming out, but I want to hear what’s on the minds of Iowans. I have been very, very concerned about the outrageous cost of prescription drugs in this country. I want to hear from seniors and others in Iowa about their feelings about the pharmaceutical industry and what we should do to lower drug prices. I want to talk to farmers in Iowa, who have a lot of very legitimate concerns. I want to talk to minority communities in Iowa — the Latino community, the black community. I want to talk to women about their concerns. No question about it, we’re going to do a number of big rallies. I hope folks come out. But we’ll also be meeting in community after community with smaller groups of people.

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