Latest / Pod Save America / 2020: Amy Klobuchar on winning the Midwest and working with Republicans

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2020: Amy Klobuchar on winning the Midwest and working with Republicans · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Coming to
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Speaker 1: you with another one of our series of 2020 Canada Interviews.
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Speaker 1: Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar joined us in studio in Los Angeles.
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Speaker 1: We sat down and had a good conversation about why
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Speaker 1: she's running for president, what she wants to do as president,
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Speaker 1: and how to get things done in Mitch McConnell's Washington.
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Speaker 1: Here's the interview. I'm excited to be joined by Minnesota
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Speaker 1: Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, Amy Klobuchar. Senator Klobuchar, welcome
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Speaker 1: to the Pots of America.
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Speaker 2: Well, thanks, Dan. Let's not forget I was the first
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Speaker 2: senator to ever go on this show.
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Speaker 1: That is true. We owe all of this here to you.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you may have been nothing.
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Speaker 1: We actually call this the Amy Klobuchar Studio.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
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Speaker 1: In honor of that, yes.
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Speaker 2: Well, let's also remember I did it from D.C., And
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Speaker 2: I thought that I knew it was a very cool show,
1:15
Speaker 2: but I didn't know that it was a podcast. So
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Speaker 2: I dressed up in a cool outfit. That's right. I
1:20
Speaker 2: realized that it was a podcast. Yes. Yeah.
1:23
Speaker 1: Well, you always know in your head you had that
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Speaker 1: cool outfit on.
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Speaker 2: I did. It was my daughter that told me it
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Speaker 2: was cool.
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Speaker 1: Before we get to our notoriously hard questions, I do
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Speaker 1: want to say belated happy birthday.
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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
1:32
Speaker 1: I understand you had your birthday this weekend while campaigning.
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Speaker 2: I did. Many, many cakes and songs.
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Speaker 1: That's good.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a lot of fun, actually. My husband
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Speaker 2: gave me and our daughter and our staff auto bingo games,
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Speaker 2: kind of a retro thing to play in the car
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Speaker 2: while you're driving around Iowa and you try to look
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Speaker 2: for one cow, one post office box, things like that.
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Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun.
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Speaker 1: That's awesome.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I want to start, as we start most of these interviews,
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Speaker 1: with your decision to run for president. And in my experience,
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Speaker 1: there are sort of two types of senators. There are
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Speaker 1: the ones who arrive at the view of the Senate
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Speaker 1: as a way station on the way to a presidential campaign.
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Speaker 1: And there are senators who come to the Senate and
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Speaker 1: take it very seriously as legislators. And I always saw
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Speaker 1: you in the latter camp as someone who came in
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Speaker 1: very focused on work in the Senate, passed a lot
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Speaker 1: of bills, I think more bills than most senators. And
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Speaker 1: yet you decided to run for president. And I saw
2:28
Speaker 1: that sort of as a shift. And I'm curious what
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Speaker 1: led you down this path. I think it was unexpected
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Speaker 1: to a lot of people that you would do this.
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Speaker 2: Part of my thinking is that's exactly what we need
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Speaker 2: in the presidency. We need someone right now after these
2:43
Speaker 2: years of Donald Trump that's actually going to go in
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Speaker 2: there instead of trying to divide people, instead of trying
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Speaker 2: to make them hate each other, someone who's going to
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Speaker 2: go in there and try to get things done and
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Speaker 2: have big ideas for the country, but be able to
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Speaker 2: actually go through with them. I figure anyone that runs
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Speaker 2: for president better have some real solutions for real problems.
3:07
Speaker 2: figure out how they're going to pay for it and
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Speaker 2: go forward. And that doesn't mean that it is not aspirational,
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Speaker 2: that it is not a big idea campaign. It simply
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Speaker 2: means that when you take everything away and everyone has
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Speaker 2: all these lofty ideas and these speeches and they talk,
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Speaker 2: do you want someone in there that's going to have
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Speaker 2: the ability to get things done, that has a track
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Speaker 2: record to do it, that has a track record for
3:30
Speaker 2: over a decade of being a proven progressive? Because I
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Speaker 2: figure If you're going to make progress and be a progressive,
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Speaker 2: then you have to make progress. And that means doing
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Speaker 2: things like taking on the prescription drug companies or making
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Speaker 2: sure that we have an ag policy in place that
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Speaker 2: works for everyone, including not just every big major ag
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Speaker 2: company but our small farmers, making sure that we're doing
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Speaker 2: something about renewable energy and taking on the oil companies.
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Speaker 2: I have a track record of taking on these issues.
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Speaker 1: And I take it that when you got in, I
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Speaker 1: think more than 10% of your Senate caucus is running
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Speaker 1: for president.
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Speaker 2: Well, that's why it's so nice to sit down with
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Speaker 2: you today because I'm able to see someone that's not
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Speaker 2: running for president. It's a lot of fun for me.
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Speaker 2: It's very calming.
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Speaker 1: I haven't let my intentions be known fully just yet.
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Speaker 2: Okay. Well, maybe that's the big announcement today. Yes, that's right.
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Speaker 1: And I take it that you, you know, when someone
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Speaker 1: decides to run for president, there is a way, like
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Speaker 1: one of the ways of looking at it is you
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Speaker 1: sort of look around the 300 million Americans and decide
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Speaker 1: that you yourself are uniquely qualified to do this job.
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Speaker 1: And in this case, the thing is even more interesting
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Speaker 1: in the sense that not just you, but every one
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Speaker 1: of the senators who are running are deciding that they
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Speaker 1: are more uniquely qualified to do that than their colleagues.
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Speaker 1: And like, what is the very specific unique thing that,
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Speaker 1: you bring to the table that you want voters to
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Speaker 1: know about your candidacy?
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Speaker 2: Sure. Well, I mentioned one of them, but the other
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Speaker 2: one is that I am from the Midwest. I think
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Speaker 2: you know from 2016 that the story I always like
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Speaker 2: to tell is my husband is, he's a third of
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Speaker 2: six boys, grew up in a single trailer home, tripled
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Speaker 2: bunk beds, and they would take one vacation every summer
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Speaker 2: in their station wagon. And they'd all pile in there.
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Speaker 2: And my husband was always the quiet one, the good boy.
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Speaker 2: And the story is, which has not yet quite been proven,
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Speaker 2: that he once got left behind at a gas station
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Speaker 2: and they pulled out. But what we do know for
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Speaker 2: certain is they counted off every single boy in that
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Speaker 2: station wagon because they didn't want to miss one. And
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Speaker 2: I can tell you one thing. When I head up
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Speaker 2: the ticket, we're not going to leave the Midwest behind
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Speaker 2: at the gas station. So that record of going not
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Speaker 2: just where it is comfortable but where it's uncomfortable, of
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Speaker 2: winning 42 of the counties that Donald Trump won in
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Speaker 2: my state, back in 2018. He won them in 16.
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Speaker 2: I come back in 18, winning every congressional district, including
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Speaker 2: Michelle Bachman's every single time. And I do it not
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Speaker 2: by selling out on our values, but trying to figure
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Speaker 2: out where can we find some common ground to move forward.
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Speaker 2: So I think that's unique. The other thing about me
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Speaker 2: is I've never lost an election. I do what it
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Speaker 2: takes to win. I know I'm an underdog coming from
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Speaker 2: a state that's not as has as many people or
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Speaker 2: has as much money. But every single time I've run,
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Speaker 2: I've found a way to do it. When I was
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Speaker 2: running for Senate, I had a bunch of primary opponents,
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Speaker 2: including two that were wealthy. And I remember calling everyone
6:36
Speaker 2: around the country, and some people didn't call me back
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Speaker 2: because they couldn't say my last name. And so I
6:41
Speaker 2: finally just found a new way. I called everyone that
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Speaker 2: I knew in my life, and I actually raised an all-time,
6:47
Speaker 2: this is still a U.S. Senate record, I raised $ 17, 000
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Speaker 2: from ex-boyfriends. And as my husband has pointed out, it
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Speaker 2: is not an expanding base. And so that is why
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Speaker 2: I always encourage people to help us at amyclobuchar.com because
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Speaker 2: ours is a grassroots campaign. And I am the only
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Speaker 2: candidate that announced in the middle of a blizzard and
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Speaker 2: stayed out there and delivered my entire speech with eight
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Speaker 2: inches of snow on top of my head.
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Speaker 1: You brought up your state of Minnesota and I'm curious
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Speaker 1: about what you have found is the foremost success that
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Speaker 1: you have had in that state. And so I want
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Speaker 1: to ask you a couple questions about this. One is,
7:26
Speaker 1: you know, Minnesota is thought of until recently as a
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Speaker 1: battleground state, but one that leans Democratic. Democrats have won
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Speaker 1: it the most. Barack Obama won it by, I think,
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Speaker 1: around eight points in 2012. Hillary Clinton barely won it
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Speaker 1: in 2016.
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Speaker 2: It was her smallest margin of victory.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, less than two points, I believe. And so... Do
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Speaker 1: you think that change from 2012 to 2016 is specific
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Speaker 1: to Donald Trump, to that race, or part of a
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Speaker 1: larger trend that we're seeing in the Midwest in states
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Speaker 1: like Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.
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Speaker 2: Well, I think it was part of that trend. And
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Speaker 2: you saw we had, you know, at one point we had,
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Speaker 2: when I first got in there, Governor Pawlenty, we had
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Speaker 2: three of our four constitutional officers Republican. We had the
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Speaker 2: other senator was Republican. And we've really changed it around.
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Speaker 2: And we've done it, as I've said, by... building up
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Speaker 2: support in the suburbs, by building up support in the
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Speaker 2: rural areas, and then by getting our base voting. We
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Speaker 2: had the highest voter turnout in the country in the
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Speaker 2: last election. And I think that those are things that
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Speaker 2: differentiated us from Wisconsin, which is really similar. But then
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Speaker 2: what you saw after Donald Trump's victory, for the most
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Speaker 2: part in nearly every state in the Midwest, except for
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Speaker 2: that short victory that Hillary had in Minnesota, what happened
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Speaker 2: in 2018 was people started focusing on those bread and
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Speaker 2: butter issues, our own economic agenda, especially when it came
8:52
Speaker 2: to health care, not kicking people off for pre-existing conditions.
8:55
Speaker 2: And then, you know, if you don't think that worked,
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Speaker 2: I have four words for you, former Governor Scott Walker, right? Like,
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Speaker 2: this worked. And we put up candidates like Abby and
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Speaker 2: Cindy in Iowa in those congressional seats, Dean Phillips and
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Speaker 2: Angie Craig in the suburbs of Minnesota, and we took
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Speaker 2: back a bunch of Republican seats, and the House became
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Speaker 2: the People's House again, allowing us to work on democracy issues,
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Speaker 2: all kinds of things, and of course, stymied in the Senate.
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Speaker 1: And so you think healthcare, is healthcare the key message there,
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Speaker 1: or is it something broader?
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Speaker 2: I think that in 2018, healthcare, which is borne out
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Speaker 2: to be true, anyone that thought we were crying wolf
9:30
Speaker 2: when we said, oh, hey, they're going to try to
9:32
Speaker 2: take your healthcare coverage away, now look what they're doing
9:35
Speaker 2: when they're filing that lawsuit down in Texas and other
9:38
Speaker 2: things they've done to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. So
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Speaker 2: in 2018, that was it. I think now as we
9:44
Speaker 2: head into 2020 because of Donald Trump's actions, the way
9:47
Speaker 2: I look at it, climate change is bigger than ever
9:51
Speaker 2: because of what he's done and because of the weather
9:53
Speaker 2: that we're seeing all across the country. This isn't just
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Speaker 2: rising sea levels. This is also what we're seeing. in
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Speaker 2: the heartland with farms underwater and tornadoes and hail raging
10:05
Speaker 2: wildfires all you have to do is look at that
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Speaker 2: video of that little girl in the car with her
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Speaker 2: dad as he drives through these lapping fires with their
10:13
Speaker 2: house burning down behind him singing to her to try
10:16
Speaker 2: to calm her down people know that it's happening the
10:19
Speaker 2: gun issue emerged where I think people had written that
10:23
Speaker 2: off like, oh, no one's going to vote on that.
10:25
Speaker 2: That's hard for Democrats. Now look what happened after Parkland.
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Speaker 2: You had kids voting in midterms in record levels, and
10:32
Speaker 2: you had them also talking to their parents to convince
10:35
Speaker 2: them that this was something that they had to change
10:38
Speaker 2: their mind on, that it didn't hurt hunters like in Minnesota.
10:41
Speaker 2: It wasn't going to hurt them if we had universal
10:43
Speaker 2: background checks. So I just see a number of issues
10:45
Speaker 2: coming out in 2020 that make this more than just about, oh,
10:50
Speaker 2: you know, which person do you like better to lead
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Speaker 2: the ticket? People are interested in, number one, who can win.
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Speaker 2: And I'll make my case for winning based on the
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Speaker 2: Midwest and how I've won. But it is also about
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Speaker 2: a mandate to make changes that this president every single
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Speaker 2: day goes back on.
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Speaker 1: I want to ask you about your policy platform and,
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Speaker 1: you know, what you've been running on and what you
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Speaker 1: would do as president. And And one of the first
11:13
Speaker 1: policies that you announced was a policy to combat addiction
11:18
Speaker 1: and prioritize mental health. And you've talked about that in
11:20
Speaker 1: very personal terms. So I want to ask you what
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Speaker 1: your plan would do and why you put it so
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Speaker 1: close to the top of your platform.
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Speaker 2: I thought it was time for a candidate for president
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Speaker 2: to take this on and not just take it on
11:32
Speaker 2: like war on drugs and not just take it on like,
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Speaker 2: you know, this is nice if we could get this done.
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Speaker 2: One out of five Americans are dealing with mental health problems. Yet,
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Speaker 2: for one example, the state of Iowa, there's only 64
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Speaker 2: public hospital beds, can you imagine, for mental health? Because
11:49
Speaker 2: we went away from this state hospital system to community-based,
11:54
Speaker 2: which is a good idea, but the money wasn't there,
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Speaker 2: the resources weren't there to help people. Addiction. One out
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Speaker 2: of two people in this country have addiction in their
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Speaker 2: family or addiction with someone they know well. And yes,
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Speaker 2: for me, it's personal. My dad struggled with alcoholism my
12:11
Speaker 2: whole life growing up. He had two DWIs when I
12:14
Speaker 2: was in middle school. And by the time, right before
12:18
Speaker 2: we got married, my husband and I, he had his
12:21
Speaker 2: third one. And that one was a different time in
12:24
Speaker 2: our history. And he was really facing jail or treatment.
12:27
Speaker 2: And he chose treatment. And with the help of his
12:30
Speaker 2: faith and his friends and that treatment, in his own words,
12:33
Speaker 2: he was pursued by grace. And he got his life together.
12:37
Speaker 2: And now he is 91. I just saw him on
12:39
Speaker 2: Memorial Day. And in his words, he's in assisted living.
12:43
Speaker 2: It's hard to get a drink around here anyway. But
12:46
Speaker 2: the point of the story is he was sober ever
12:49
Speaker 2: since he had that treatment. And he also went to
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Speaker 2: AA and his AA group still visits him in assisted living.
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Speaker 2: And it's my view that, you know, everyone should have
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Speaker 2: that right to be pursued by grace, whether you're struggling
13:02
Speaker 2: with mental health or opioid, meth, crack cocaine, some of
13:06
Speaker 2: these drugs, where we've seen an uptick, especially meth, have
13:10
Speaker 2: gotten lost in the discussion on opioids. But there's a
13:13
Speaker 2: lot of people, and especially in communities of color, that
13:16
Speaker 2: are struggling with various drugs. So how do I pay
13:20
Speaker 2: for it? I pay for it on the backs of
13:22
Speaker 2: those that caused this addiction to the first place. That's
13:26
Speaker 2: those pharma companies that produce opioids that didn't tell us
13:29
Speaker 2: the truth about how addictive they were, and they got
13:32
Speaker 2: tons of money. And you're going to have a master
13:34
Speaker 2: legal settlement. You can also put a a milligram tax
13:38
Speaker 2: on them for opioids. And you can use that money,
13:41
Speaker 2: not just for opioids, you can use it for treatment
13:44
Speaker 2: for other drugs and mental illness.
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Speaker 1: Do you believe that, you talk about how you would
13:50
Speaker 1: pay for this proposal, do you believe that all policies
13:53
Speaker 1: need to be paid for? Like, how do you think
13:55
Speaker 1: about the balance between short-term needs we have right now,
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Speaker 1: whether it's around climate change or healthcare or other things,
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Speaker 1: and long-term concerns around the deficit?
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Speaker 2: Well, I think it was Angus King, my friend from Maine,
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Speaker 2: who said it took us 30 years to walk into
14:10
Speaker 2: this woods with this debt. It's going to take us
14:12
Speaker 2: that long to walk out. So you want to have
14:16
Speaker 2: it as a factor if you make decisions along the way.
14:19
Speaker 2: And what bothers me about this president is that he
14:22
Speaker 2: doesn't care at all. He just did a tax bill
14:25
Speaker 2: that was a trillion dollars that he'd add to our
14:29
Speaker 2: country's underlying debt. And he does it all the time.
14:32
Speaker 2: He doesn't care. A wall for billions of dollars, who cares?
14:37
Speaker 2: Money just mounts up. So for me, it will be
14:39
Speaker 2: a factor because I don't think that this next generation
14:42
Speaker 2: who already has got saddled with this debt, student debt,
14:45
Speaker 2: other things, should also be saddled with this. So as
14:48
Speaker 2: you look at things, you try to figure out how
14:51
Speaker 2: you're going to pay for it. In a crisis, do
14:52
Speaker 2: you think like that? When Barack Obama faced the downturn? No,
14:56
Speaker 2: we had to do the stimulus. But When you look
14:59
Speaker 2: at things like infrastructure, yeah, I think we should pay
15:02
Speaker 2: for it. And I put out there right how we
15:04
Speaker 2: can do it. And a lot of it's going to
15:05
Speaker 2: be reversing these regressive tax policies that this administration has
15:10
Speaker 2: put in place. Literally, if you take the corporate rate
15:13
Speaker 2: from 21%, which was way lower than anyone thought they
15:16
Speaker 2: would do, the Republicans, and they did it, and you
15:19
Speaker 2: put it at 25%, every point you go is $ 100 billion.
15:23
Speaker 2: So that's $ 400 billion right there that can pay for infrastructure.
15:27
Speaker 2: you go back to the way that we were doing
15:30
Speaker 2: taxation before they put in the international tax plan where
15:34
Speaker 2: they take an average of the tax rate in all
15:36
Speaker 2: these countries, you save $ 150 billion. And depending on how
15:40
Speaker 2: many of your listeners have money in the Bahamas, it's
15:42
Speaker 2: probably not going to hurt them. So yes, a lot
15:45
Speaker 2: of this is reversing them. Then you add things like
15:48
Speaker 2: changes to the capital gains tax where you could bring
15:51
Speaker 2: in hundreds of billions of dollars depending on how you
15:53
Speaker 2: do it. Closing the carried interest loophole, that's $ 14 billion.
15:57
Speaker 2: passing comprehensive immigration reform, scored 100 by the Congressional Budget Office,
16:04
Speaker 2: $ 158 billion in 10 years because people come out of
16:08
Speaker 2: the shadows and pay their taxes. And I think it's
16:11
Speaker 2: important for people to think about what those things mean
16:15
Speaker 2: about our country, the value statements and how you pay
16:17
Speaker 2: for things. So I'm going to talk about it, but
16:20
Speaker 2: do I think it's going to matter for every single policy?
16:24
Speaker 1: No.
16:24
Speaker 2: No. But I do think that you've got to keep
16:27
Speaker 2: it in the back of your mind and propose ways
16:29
Speaker 2: to pay for things.
16:30
Speaker 1: You brought up President Obama's stimulus package, as you guys
16:34
Speaker 1: all voted on the Senate, as something that wasn't paid for,
16:36
Speaker 1: and for good reason, given both the economics of it
16:39
Speaker 1: and the crisis we were in in the moment. A
16:41
Speaker 1: lot of people today would believe that climate change is
16:44
Speaker 1: a crisis on par with that. How do you think about...
16:51
Speaker 1: Does climate change mitigation or efforts to curb carbon emissions
16:55
Speaker 1: need to be paid for as well?
16:56
Speaker 2: I think some of this is shifting where we have
16:58
Speaker 2: our money now. We have billions of dollars to the
17:01
Speaker 2: oil companies. I would take that away, right? That is
17:04
Speaker 2: their incentives, basically, that you don't have for other forms
17:08
Speaker 2: of renewable. So that's one example. It's shifting where some
17:11
Speaker 2: of the money is now to put the incentives in place.
17:15
Speaker 2: And then I would, one, get us back into the
17:17
Speaker 2: International Climate Change Agreement on day one. And then two...
17:22
Speaker 2: bring back the Obama clean power rules that ended up
17:24
Speaker 2: on the cutting room floor, as well as the gas
17:27
Speaker 2: mileage standards. And then, yes, sweeping legislation. And there are
17:31
Speaker 2: many ways you can pay for things, but we also
17:33
Speaker 2: have to see it as a long-term investment in getting
17:37
Speaker 2: off this track. And the unique thing I bring to
17:39
Speaker 2: this issue, because we've got a lot of great candidates,
17:42
Speaker 2: as you know, you've had them in the studio, that
17:45
Speaker 2: talk about climate change, is that it's a voice from
17:47
Speaker 2: the heartland. We all know we have rising sea levels
17:50
Speaker 2: and melting ice sheet in Greenland. But what people don't
17:54
Speaker 2: always talk about are those raging wildfires in Colorado, losing
17:58
Speaker 2: the firefighters in Arizona, the tornadoes and the hailstorms. And
18:05
Speaker 2: the woman in Iowa named Fran, who is in Pacific Junction, Iowa,
18:11
Speaker 2: on the Nebraska border, who literally was hanging there on
18:15
Speaker 2: her neck was this pair of binoculars. She had me
18:17
Speaker 2: look through them and she says, this is my house.
18:20
Speaker 2: I bought it with my husband, our four-year-old twins. We
18:22
Speaker 2: were going to retire in this house. And now it's
18:25
Speaker 2: halfway underwater. And she said, it's such a sturdy house.
18:29
Speaker 2: When we bought it, it was there for almost a century.
18:31
Speaker 2: There's horse hair in the plaster. And then I said, well,
18:34
Speaker 2: I guess you got this house. She bought it next
18:38
Speaker 2: to this river. And she said, no, no, that's the road.
18:41
Speaker 2: The river is two and a half miles away. And
18:44
Speaker 2: the rivers never come like this before. Well, there you go.
18:48
Speaker 2: So Those stories and the levees we've seen breaking down
18:52
Speaker 2: and the problems with the locks and dams and the
18:54
Speaker 2: problems of not having good public transportation, those are the
18:58
Speaker 2: stories that have to be told to capture the imaginations
19:01
Speaker 2: of people in the Midwest to get them behind the
19:03
Speaker 2: momentum that we need to pass sweeping climate change legislation.
19:09
Speaker 1: I want to get your reaction as a former prosecutor
19:12
Speaker 1: to the Mueller report. What did it say to you
19:15
Speaker 1: about what happened in 2016 and afterwards? Right.
19:19
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing it said to me was that
19:23
Speaker 2: a foreign country invaded our election. And I know we
19:27
Speaker 2: have talked a lot about obstruction of justice. And I
19:30
Speaker 2: was the one that asked Attorney General Barr all those
19:32
Speaker 2: questions where he somehow interestingly said that things were obstruction
19:36
Speaker 2: of justice that I believe then were in the report
19:39
Speaker 2: as established facts. And I got to ask him about
19:42
Speaker 2: it again. But if we just look at our country's
19:46
Speaker 2: security and our national security, I look at that first
19:49
Speaker 2: part of that report. where very methodically they go through
19:54
Speaker 2: what a foreign power did to invade our democracy. And
19:58
Speaker 2: we know what the repercussions of that was, slowed reverse
20:02
Speaker 2: the momentum of an entire presidential campaign by hacking into
20:06
Speaker 2: their emails and putting that out there. tried to hack
20:09
Speaker 2: into the election equipment. And now we know every single
20:13
Speaker 2: state got very close in Illinois. And now we know
20:16
Speaker 2: about those two counties in Florida spent multiple, multiple amounts
20:22
Speaker 2: of money on trying to get propaganda out there. We
20:26
Speaker 2: know all that. But it literally lays out that a
20:29
Speaker 2: foreign country, maybe they didn't use tanks, maybe they didn't
20:32
Speaker 2: use missiles, but they invaded our election all the same.
20:35
Speaker 2: And people call it meddling. That's what I do when
20:38
Speaker 2: I call my daughter on a Saturday night and ask
20:40
Speaker 2: her what she's doing. This was actually an invasion of
20:43
Speaker 2: our election. So that's why I so dearly want to
20:46
Speaker 2: have Director Mueller come before the Senate or the House
20:50
Speaker 2: and testify publicly, because I think no one's going to
20:53
Speaker 2: get through that whole 448-page report except members of Congress
20:57
Speaker 2: and the media and people that are going. I think
21:00
Speaker 2: that people need to actually hear him tell that story. Why?
21:05
Speaker 2: because I want to protect our election in 2020. And
21:08
Speaker 2: this administration has done everything to stop us in our tracks.
21:12
Speaker 2: Senator Lankford, not exactly liberal, and I have a bill,
21:15
Speaker 2: the Secure Elections Act, that requires backup paper ballots and audits.
21:20
Speaker 2: The White House literally made calls to stop that bill
21:24
Speaker 2: from getting through a committee markup, even though we had
21:26
Speaker 2: the Republican votes to do it. That happened. The Honest
21:30
Speaker 2: Ads Act, a bill that I had with Senator McCain
21:33
Speaker 2: and now Senator Graham, is the lead Republican that says
21:36
Speaker 2: that those social media companies have to have the same
21:38
Speaker 2: standards that radio, TV, and newspaper do, that you've got
21:41
Speaker 2: to say who's paying for ads and that you've got
21:43
Speaker 2: to say how much money they spend on ads and
21:46
Speaker 2: you've got to be able to see the ads. Those
21:49
Speaker 2: are some pretty straightforward things we can do to protect
21:52
Speaker 2: our democracy, but this administration stops us every time.
21:56
Speaker 1: What do you think under.
21:59
Speaker 1: What do you think is beneath the administration's opposition to
22:03
Speaker 1: these issues? Do they welcome the interference again? I think
22:08
Speaker 1: this is a really important question. Okay, there's a few things.
22:10
Speaker 2: Well, it is, but we have some clues there, little
22:14
Speaker 2: breadcrumbs to follow. I mean, the first is what we
22:16
Speaker 2: found out that former Secretary Nielsen, Homeland Security Secretary, was
22:21
Speaker 2: told that she couldn't go talk to the president about
22:26
Speaker 2: this issue of Russians' invasion. Well... Why was that? Because
22:30
Speaker 2: he doesn't even like to admit what happened. Right. So
22:32
Speaker 2: I'd start there is that they are afraid to even
22:36
Speaker 2: suggest some serious policy changes that have to be made
22:39
Speaker 2: because he doesn't want to hear anything about it because
22:41
Speaker 2: he wants to relish in his victory when he didn't
22:43
Speaker 2: even get, you know, the majority of the popular vote. OK,
22:46
Speaker 2: we start with that. I think the other thing is
22:49
Speaker 2: that I don't trust them. Of course, I don't trust
22:53
Speaker 2: him when it comes to protecting our elections. It's been
22:56
Speaker 2: in his interest to have chaos. every step of the way,
22:59
Speaker 2: and that's what he likes to foment. Imagine if we
23:02
Speaker 2: have a close election, which I do not plan on having,
23:07
Speaker 2: but if we had one and one of the states
23:10
Speaker 2: had one or two counties that got hacked into, there
23:12
Speaker 2: were no backup paper ballots, then he would have the
23:15
Speaker 2: chaos of no conclusion in a democracy. And this makes
23:19
Speaker 2: no sense when we can incentivize these remaining 14 states
23:23
Speaker 2: that have partial paper ballots or don't have them at
23:26
Speaker 2: all to get there by 2020.
23:29
Speaker 1: In the second half of the report, Robert Mueller lays
23:35
Speaker 1: out a fact pattern of obstruction of justice or attempt obstruction,
23:40
Speaker 1: whatever you say. As a prosecutor, how do you look
23:43
Speaker 1: at that fact pattern? Is that consistent with how someone with,
23:47
Speaker 1: is that consistent with the fact pattern of someone who
23:49
Speaker 1: would be charged with obstruction of justice?
23:52
Speaker 2: I think it is. When you go through what he did,
23:55
Speaker 2: you have these, there were 10 points made by the
24:00
Speaker 2: special counsel. And I think the one that's probably easiest
24:03
Speaker 2: to understand is the one where Michael Cohen was out
24:06
Speaker 2: there trying to decide if he wants a plea or
24:08
Speaker 2: at least publicly, that's what it looks like. And then
24:12
Speaker 2: you have Trump out there saying things about his family members,
24:15
Speaker 2: you know, threatening things that he's saying about him and
24:18
Speaker 2: his family members, the guy in the highest office in
24:20
Speaker 2: the land. To me, that's pretty obvious that he's trying
24:24
Speaker 2: to get Michael Cohen to not plead, right, to not
24:28
Speaker 2: put the facts out there, and threatening him in that way.
24:31
Speaker 2: You have the way he handled Director Comey. You have
24:35
Speaker 2: the things that he said about Flynn. You can just
24:38
Speaker 2: go through bit by bit, and it is the pieces
24:41
Speaker 2: of a puzzle to show a pattern. And that's what
24:44
Speaker 2: I was trying to get Director Barr to tell the
24:47
Speaker 2: truth on. And that is that it is not just,
24:51
Speaker 2: you know, one thing. It's a former prosecutor. I know this.
24:54
Speaker 2: You look at that, what is called the totality of
24:57
Speaker 2: the evidence, right? You look at everything together. And to me,
25:01
Speaker 2: this showed a pattern.
25:03
Speaker 1: Do you think the House should open an impeachment inquiry?
25:07
Speaker 2: You know, that is going to be up to them.
25:08
Speaker 2: I know that they are right now very aggressively pursuing
25:12
Speaker 2: a number of strains of an investigation. They are trying
25:18
Speaker 2: to get all of those financial documents, which may be
25:20
Speaker 2: very important in a different way to show the president's
25:23
Speaker 2: business dealings and why he does certain things that he does,
25:27
Speaker 2: the financial documents, the tax returns. They are trying to
25:30
Speaker 2: get Director Mueller and McGahn and others to come and
25:34
Speaker 2: trying to push on that, and I think this is
25:36
Speaker 2: all most likely going to end up in court. So
25:39
Speaker 2: piece by piece, they are building this case. It may
25:43
Speaker 2: end up there, and that may end up being the
25:45
Speaker 2: right thing to do, But right now they're simply investigating, pushing,
25:50
Speaker 2: and they could also, as some have suggested, start an
25:52
Speaker 2: impeachment proceeding just to gather the evidence. But I do
25:56
Speaker 2: agree with Speaker Pelosi that you can investigate and legislate
26:01
Speaker 2: at the same time. And one of the things that
26:03
Speaker 2: we learned from that last election is that people want,
26:08
Speaker 2: they believe in the law, they believe in the truth,
26:11
Speaker 2: they want to have a check and balance on this president.
26:14
Speaker 2: but they also want us to stand for an optimistic
26:16
Speaker 2: economic agenda for this country.
26:26
Speaker 1: When I used to work for President Obama, I would
26:28
Speaker 1: always tell him before press conferences to never answer a
26:30
Speaker 1: hypothetical question.
26:32
Speaker 2: Oh, now you're going to ask me one?
26:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you one, but it's a good one. Like,
26:34
Speaker 1: it's a good one. So let's, hypothetically, you've won the election. See,
26:40
Speaker 1: there you go.
26:40
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, no, that's a really good one.
26:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, congratulations.
26:42
Speaker 2: Thank you.
26:43
Speaker 1: So you're sitting in your transition office. Speaker Pelosi, Senator Schumer,
26:49
Speaker 1: who's now who is just about to become the Democratic
26:51
Speaker 1: majority leader again. Senate Democrats have 52 votes, let's say.
26:55
Speaker 1: So Pelosi and Schumer come to you and they say,
26:57
Speaker 1: President-elect Klobuchar, the first bill we put on the floor
27:01
Speaker 1: is the one that's going to have the best chance
27:03
Speaker 1: of passing. Which of your policy proposals do you want
27:06
Speaker 1: us to put out first?
27:10
Speaker 2: I would put up a health care proposal to get
27:12
Speaker 2: at the farmer prices, with negotiation under Medicare, something that
27:18
Speaker 2: there's general agreement with Democrats. And on that issue, you
27:21
Speaker 2: can get some Republicans on board doing something with a
27:24
Speaker 2: public option, something that we wanted to do for a
27:27
Speaker 2: long time. Do I think that that will pass immediately? No,
27:31
Speaker 2: but that's in for the long haul. The climate change
27:35
Speaker 2: proposals we just laid out, some of this I could
27:37
Speaker 2: just do myself, right? Put us back in that climate
27:40
Speaker 2: change agreement, do those. And from then, I think that
27:42
Speaker 2: would be working with them on what that legislation would
27:44
Speaker 2: look like. And then the third thing I would do,
27:47
Speaker 2: which has to get done, is immigration reform. This president
27:51
Speaker 2: has been, the rhetoric has been so hurtful and divisive
27:55
Speaker 2: for this country. I always think of this little girl
27:59
Speaker 2: in Minnesota who I met her parents, and they said
28:02
Speaker 2: that during the height of his mean-spirited rhetoric, they were Somali,
28:07
Speaker 2: they took their family out to dinner, and this guy
28:09
Speaker 2: walked by and says, Hey, you four go home. You
28:12
Speaker 2: go home to where you come from. And the little
28:14
Speaker 2: girl looks up at her mom and she says, Mom,
28:17
Speaker 2: I don't want to go home and eat dinner. You
28:19
Speaker 2: said we could eat out tonight. You think of the
28:22
Speaker 2: words of that innocent child. She only knows one home,
28:25
Speaker 2: and that's my state. She only knows one home. That's
28:28
Speaker 2: our country. And so we have to stop the rhetoric.
28:31
Speaker 2: And at the same time, there could be huge economic
28:33
Speaker 2: gain for our country if we do immigration reform as
28:36
Speaker 2: President Obama wanted to do it and as we passed
28:39
Speaker 2: in the Senate in 2013. I mentioned the debt reduction,
28:42
Speaker 2: but it's much more than that. You know, 70 of
28:44
Speaker 2: our Fortune 500 companies are headed up by people from
28:47
Speaker 2: other countries. 25% of our U.S. Nobel laureates were born
28:51
Speaker 2: in other countries. And he's basically stopping this economic march
28:56
Speaker 2: that we have always been on, where people have not
29:00
Speaker 2: just survived in America, they've led America, that immigrants don't
29:04
Speaker 2: diminish America, they are America. And so I see that
29:07
Speaker 2: as ripe for getting done. Our business community wants it.
29:10
Speaker 2: The labor unions support it. The farm migrant workers supported
29:15
Speaker 2: that bill back in 2013, as did the farm groups.
29:19
Speaker 2: We don't have enough workers in many of our states
29:22
Speaker 2: in the middle of the country, in our fields, in
29:23
Speaker 2: our factories, in our nursing homes, in our hospitals. So
29:27
Speaker 2: this idea of a path to citizenship and immigration reform,
29:31
Speaker 2: I believe that gets done in the first year of
29:33
Speaker 2: a Democratic president.
29:36
Speaker 1: Any piece of legislation... or almost any piece of legislation
29:39
Speaker 1: would require 60 votes in the Senate. And I wanted
29:42
Speaker 1: to ask you about what you, and you signed a
29:45
Speaker 1: letter back in 2017 supporting the legislative filibuster. Do you
29:49
Speaker 1: still support the legislative filibuster?
29:53
Speaker 2: I support it as a check and balance, of course,
29:56
Speaker 2: so that we make sure that the minority party has
29:59
Speaker 2: a say and that we don't get basically shellacked by
30:04
Speaker 2: the Republican Party. But few things. First of all, you
30:07
Speaker 2: know we've seen changes on the other sides, on the
30:10
Speaker 2: appointment side, on the judicial side, and the Republicans actually
30:14
Speaker 2: had the audacity to make changes when it came to
30:17
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, which we had not made. And so
30:21
Speaker 2: that is now going to change. So when I'm president,
30:23
Speaker 2: you're going to see us be able to, as long
30:26
Speaker 2: as we have the Senate, to be able to get
30:28
Speaker 2: those judicial nominees through nearly immediately. And it's something that
30:33
Speaker 2: I would do right away. The second thing that we
30:38
Speaker 2: could look at is legislative filibuster. I would prefer, and
30:41
Speaker 2: I've said this publicly, and you can see in that letter,
30:44
Speaker 2: I have most of my colleagues to keep it in place,
30:47
Speaker 2: but I think it's leverage. It would be leverage for
30:49
Speaker 2: Senator Schumer. If they start blocking things that have Republican support, right?
30:55
Speaker 2: Immigration reform, doing something on climate change. There are Republicans
30:58
Speaker 2: that want to move on this. Healthcare, these huge priorities
31:01
Speaker 2: against the national momentum that we're going to see in
31:05
Speaker 2: the 2020 election with the House and what we just saw.
31:09
Speaker 2: If they start doing that, yeah, it's leverage. You could
31:11
Speaker 2: change it. You don't have to change it right away.
31:13
Speaker 2: You can change it later. And I think that kind
31:16
Speaker 2: of leverage matters when you're in a body like the Senate. So,
31:20
Speaker 2: you know, that's how I look at it. I look
31:22
Speaker 2: at it as leverage. I look at it as you
31:24
Speaker 2: would rather keep it in place if people are actually
31:28
Speaker 2: in good faith legislating because the shoe goes on the
31:31
Speaker 2: other feet when you lose the minority. And I would
31:35
Speaker 2: look at it that way more practically.
31:38
Speaker 1: You're someone who is known for... your relationship with Republicans.
31:42
Speaker 1: I read an article right around the time you announced
31:46
Speaker 1: it in Politico where the headline was like, Republicans gush
31:48
Speaker 1: about Senator Klobuchar.
31:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just, I think that's going to really help
31:51
Speaker 2: me in the primary. That's my plan. I'm going to
31:53
Speaker 2: put that right out there. Thanks for bringing it up.
31:56
Speaker 1: I actually, my honest political opinion is I think it
31:59
Speaker 1: would not hurt you.
32:00
Speaker 2: No, I agree because as I said, proven progressive means
32:03
Speaker 2: you have to make progress. Yes.
32:06
Speaker 1: But do you, but Relationship is something President Obama learned painfully.
32:10
Speaker 1: His relationship with Republicans as a senator are different than
32:13
Speaker 1: relationships with Republicans as president. Oh, yes. Do you believe
32:17
Speaker 1: that Senator McConnell would treat a President Klobuchar any different
32:22
Speaker 1: than he treated a President Obama?
32:24
Speaker 2: It depends on his own interest. Now, first of all,
32:27
Speaker 2: if we are in the majority, he's going to have
32:29
Speaker 2: to decide what to do. Is he going to just
32:31
Speaker 2: keep blocking things? I would guess he wouldn't. I think
32:35
Speaker 2: you have to look at the times that we're in.
32:38
Speaker 2: and I think President Obama, given the cards that he
32:41
Speaker 2: was dealt, did an extraordinary job, but he was dealing
32:44
Speaker 2: with the downturn, and so it was very hard to
32:48
Speaker 2: move on some of these other priorities that I just
32:50
Speaker 2: laid out that you know we have to do, so
32:52
Speaker 2: we're not just governing from chaos all the time, but
32:54
Speaker 2: he was stuck, you know, he came in, I remember
32:56
Speaker 2: him saying, I still remember this, it was after the
32:59
Speaker 2: Somali issue with the pirates and everything, he said, okay,
33:03
Speaker 2: this is my portfolio, it's not the portfolio I asked for,
33:06
Speaker 2: and he like, listed all these things he had to
33:08
Speaker 2: deal with. I love that moment. And one of them was,
33:11
Speaker 2: of course, much bigger than anything. And that was that
33:14
Speaker 2: extraordinary economic downturn caused in part by some bad policies
33:19
Speaker 2: that the Republicans had supported. So he comes in and
33:24
Speaker 2: he can't do some of these other things. And that's
33:27
Speaker 2: why I think that I would be coming in at
33:29
Speaker 2: a different time. I hope we keep economic stability, despite
33:32
Speaker 2: this president trying to do everything to create an uproar
33:37
Speaker 2: every day, whether it's with the trade wars or whether
33:39
Speaker 2: it's with how he's dealing with the rest of the world.
33:41
Speaker 2: But if you come in at that moment, you can
33:43
Speaker 2: deal with these long-term challenges that we haven't. And then
33:46
Speaker 2: I think you've got, especially with some of the things
33:48
Speaker 2: I've picked out, in addition to those big three challenges
33:51
Speaker 2: I put out there, infrastructure, mental health, you do have,
33:55
Speaker 2: there's a reason I picked those. It wasn't just, it's
33:57
Speaker 2: because those are things Trump promised, especially when it came
34:00
Speaker 2: to infrastructure on election night. And he hasn't been able
34:03
Speaker 2: to do anything on him. He hasn't kept his promise
34:05
Speaker 2: because he's unwilling to even push the big money interests
34:09
Speaker 2: a little bit to help pay for it. He says
34:13
Speaker 2: he wants to do it and then he gets back
34:14
Speaker 2: in the Oval Office, puts his head down and says, oh,
34:17
Speaker 2: I can't pay for it. So I think those issues
34:20
Speaker 2: are things that we could work with McConnell on. But
34:22
Speaker 2: I'm not naive about how it would be different in
34:24
Speaker 2: the Oval Office. I just think the fact that I
34:27
Speaker 2: know who people are and where they want to find
34:31
Speaker 2: compromise will be very helpful.
34:34
Speaker 1: It is the, like, I think it's very interesting that you,
34:37
Speaker 1: to me, that you picked immigration, I'm sorry, you picked
34:41
Speaker 1: infrastructure and mental health as your two issues because they,
34:47
Speaker 1: and I think you're, you know, you're saying this to me,
34:48
Speaker 1: I just want to confirm that you picked them in
34:50
Speaker 1: part because they are issues that have bipartisan potential in
34:55
Speaker 1: a very polarized country in Congress.
34:57
Speaker 2: Right. In part because they can get done and because
34:59
Speaker 2: they're crying out for a solution because this guy has,
35:02
Speaker 2: you know, said words that he wants to do something
35:05
Speaker 2: about it, but he hasn't done it. And by the way,
35:09
Speaker 2: I have used that formula a lot. I mean, it's
35:13
Speaker 2: just done some interesting things like the sexual harassment policy.
35:16
Speaker 2: It kind of got lost in all of the horrible
35:19
Speaker 2: news stories about these cases. I led the bill with
35:21
Speaker 2: Senator Blunt to get that done. We changed the whole
35:24
Speaker 2: way those cases are handled in Congress now. That's the
35:27
Speaker 2: bill that passed the House, Klobuchar-Blunt, and it requires members
35:30
Speaker 2: to be personally liable. It is something that is focused
35:35
Speaker 2: on getting rid of these crazy waiting periods. Or when
35:38
Speaker 2: I was given the problem of Tammy Duckworth wanting to
35:41
Speaker 2: bring her baby on the Senate floor when they had
35:45
Speaker 2: not changed the rules once except for a dog, and
35:49
Speaker 2: people thought, well, this seems silly. It wasn't silly to
35:52
Speaker 2: women of America. And so I did it by kind
35:54
Speaker 2: of almost using humor, which I do a lot, by.
35:58
Speaker 1: The way, Senator Schatz told us that you were the
36:01
Speaker 1: funniest senator.
36:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you. Yeah, well, when Hatch said that
36:05
Speaker 2: maybe we could have one baby on the floor, but
36:07
Speaker 2: not 10, I said, we already have 10 babies on
36:09
Speaker 2: the floor. Or I finally used a rhyme because they
36:13
Speaker 2: were all lined up at a classified briefing, a bunch
36:18
Speaker 2: of the older senators. And I went up and I
36:20
Speaker 2: tapped one of them on the shoulder. I said, I
36:23
Speaker 2: hear you guys are worried about breastfeeding. You sent someone over. No,
36:26
Speaker 2: we're not worried. I go, no, I hear you are.
36:29
Speaker 2: And so I use this Dr. Seuss rhyme that I did.
36:33
Speaker 2: She won't nurse the baby on the floor. She won't
36:38
Speaker 2: change its diaper by the door. She won't change its
36:42
Speaker 2: clothes in the house. She'll be as quiet as a mouse.
36:46
Speaker 2: She's not going to be burping the baby at work.
36:49
Speaker 2: Stop being such a jerk. Okay. So then suddenly they
36:54
Speaker 2: changed the policy and Tammy got to wheel herself out
36:57
Speaker 2: on the floor, this veteran with that little tiny baby
37:01
Speaker 2: on her lap. And I will tell you that that
37:04
Speaker 2: use of humor against Trump is going to be really
37:06
Speaker 2: important because he uses humor. You might not think what
37:10
Speaker 2: he says is funny, but you've got to be able
37:12
Speaker 2: to have your own agenda, ignore him when it matters,
37:16
Speaker 2: stand your ground and define those moments when he does
37:21
Speaker 2: something that's abhorrent, you know, like he did this week
37:25
Speaker 2: when he embraces Kim Jong-un again And then the last
37:30
Speaker 2: thing is use some humor. So when he called me
37:32
Speaker 2: snow woman and made fun of me for announcing my
37:35
Speaker 2: candidacy in the blizzard while talking about climate change, I said,
37:38
Speaker 2: I wrote back in Twitter, you know, Donald Trump, the
37:43
Speaker 2: science is on my side, and I'd like to see
37:45
Speaker 2: how your hair would fare in a blizzard, Mr. Umbrella Man.
37:51
Speaker 1: As a senator on the Judiciary Committee, what Do you
37:56
Speaker 1: think is the appropriate response for Democrats to what McConnell
38:01
Speaker 1: and the Republicans did to Merrick Garland?
38:05
Speaker 2: The appropriate response is when we take the White House
38:11
Speaker 2: is that my guess is there'll be some retirements then
38:14
Speaker 2: is that you immediately put up a nominee and you
38:18
Speaker 2: never back down. You immediately. And this is one of
38:21
Speaker 2: the key things that gets lost. There's going to be
38:23
Speaker 2: circuit court. and there's going to be district court nominations.
38:27
Speaker 2: And when Barack Obama came in, as we know, in
38:29
Speaker 2: the middle of the downturn, as you know, it was
38:32
Speaker 2: harder to have that as a high priority. That's got
38:34
Speaker 2: to be your priority every day in terms of making
38:37
Speaker 2: sure we're putting up qualified people who follow the law
38:40
Speaker 2: and getting it done and putting those names forth immediately.
38:43
Speaker 2: Because any delay is not good for our judicial system,
38:49
Speaker 2: given some of these characters that they've put in place.
38:52
Speaker 2: So for me, the response is, We are just going
38:55
Speaker 2: to put these great judges in, and they're going to
38:58
Speaker 2: be judges that believe in the law, that follow precedent,
39:02
Speaker 2: that are not these crazy right-wing versions of judges that
39:08
Speaker 2: they have been putting in, so that we can bring some,
39:13
Speaker 2: I'd say, some balance and some goodness back into our
39:17
Speaker 2: judicial system.
39:18
Speaker 1: Do you, I take it from that, that you do
39:22
Speaker 1: not support some of the ideas floating around about changing
39:25
Speaker 1: the composition of the court?
39:26
Speaker 2: No, I am happy to look at that. I'm just
39:28
Speaker 2: looking at reality. Even with... if we take back the Senate,
39:31
Speaker 2: do you get everyone on there and can you get
39:34
Speaker 2: the votes for that? I know that's what's called the
39:36
Speaker 2: court packing idea, right? You bring in more judges.
39:38
Speaker 1: We call it court reform here at Ponce of America. No, no, no. Oh, no.
39:43
Speaker 2: Violated. The Pod Save America rules. It's okay. So the
39:49
Speaker 2: court reform, yes. I am not opposed to that. I
39:52
Speaker 2: just think you'd have to look at your numbers and
39:55
Speaker 2: your votes and if you could get something like that done.
39:57
Speaker 2: But my immediate practical answer would be to put forward
40:01
Speaker 2: judges immediately to get them in place.
40:04
Speaker 1: Would you have a litmus test for your judicial appointments
40:09
Speaker 1: on choice or any other issues?
40:12
Speaker 2: Well, yes, that they follow the law. And the law
40:16
Speaker 2: is Roe v. Wade. And I think when you look
40:19
Speaker 2: at some of the choices that Barack Obama made with
40:22
Speaker 2: that as his guide, he put some great justices on
40:25
Speaker 2: there from Sonia Sotomayor to Elena Kagan. He did that.
40:31
Speaker 1: Thinking about a general election against Donald Trump, have you...
40:38
Speaker 1: What is your theory on how you find the balance
40:42
Speaker 1: between talking about yourself and responding to Trump?
40:50
Speaker 2: That went off balance in 2016, and I wouldn't put
40:53
Speaker 2: it all in any way on Hillary Clinton, who would
40:56
Speaker 2: have been a great president and actually did, I think,
40:59
Speaker 2: a very good job, a great job in those debates.
41:02
Speaker 2: No one had ever run against someone like him before,
41:06
Speaker 2: and now we know a lot. We know that he
41:09
Speaker 2: doesn't care how divisive it is or who he makes
41:12
Speaker 2: his enemies. He simply wants to control the agenda. He
41:15
Speaker 2: will literally fly across the world and meet with Kim
41:19
Speaker 2: Jong-un for a summit that was ill-planned, that had no outcomes,
41:24
Speaker 2: just to distract from something else. He will write a
41:27
Speaker 2: tweet that has all kinds of falsehoods and misinformation. He'll
41:32
Speaker 2: even send out a doctored video about the Speaker of
41:34
Speaker 2: the House just so he can distract from the issues
41:37
Speaker 2: at hand, whether it is his own problems with the
41:41
Speaker 2: Mueller report, whether it is a failed policy or not
41:44
Speaker 2: getting something done. And so what I've learned from all
41:47
Speaker 2: of that is that you literally have to stay on
41:51
Speaker 2: your own agenda and you cannot always go down every
41:54
Speaker 2: rabbit hole with him. And I think we've all learned that.
41:57
Speaker 2: And we certainly learned it in how we ran those
41:59
Speaker 2: 2018 races. So that would be my first answer. The second,
42:02
Speaker 2: use some humor, push back at him. Some of what
42:05
Speaker 2: he says is just, you know, absurd. He wants us
42:08
Speaker 2: to be going, oh my God, look at what he
42:10
Speaker 2: just said. That's what he wants. People know people like
42:13
Speaker 2: that in their lives. And so we have to look
42:15
Speaker 2: at it that way.
42:16
Speaker 1: Are there any other lessons that you take from Hillary
42:22
Speaker 1: Clinton's experience in 2016 to specifically, you know, either more
42:26
Speaker 1: broadly or specifically around the challenges she faced with sexism
42:31
Speaker 1: in the media, misogyny from her opponent, just the unfair
42:36
Speaker 1: set of expectations are often placed on female candidates.
42:39
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about. No, I'm kidding. Okay,
42:42
Speaker 2: so I'll start with that and then say another lesson
42:46
Speaker 2: I learned. But on that front, when I've talked to
42:50
Speaker 2: other women, and this has been my own experience as well,
42:53
Speaker 2: when we ran for tough jobs, we always knew that
42:58
Speaker 2: we were having to prove ourselves. I think it was
43:01
Speaker 2: someone once said that Women candidates, I agree with part
43:05
Speaker 2: of this, but not both things. Women candidates have to
43:07
Speaker 2: speak softly. I don't agree with that. Have to speak
43:10
Speaker 2: softly and carry a big statistic. The idea there is
43:13
Speaker 2: that we have this extra responsibility to be accountable, to
43:16
Speaker 2: know everything, to be able to answer every question and
43:19
Speaker 2: not screw up. Like, you know, they just don't look
43:21
Speaker 2: at a woman candidate and says, cool, what an interesting story.
43:26
Speaker 2: And I have thought about that even with in today's coverage,
43:29
Speaker 2: you know, um, My own husband grew up, as I said,
43:32
Speaker 2: in a trailer home, right? That's kind of an interesting story.
43:35
Speaker 2: He went on to be– somehow got himself to college
43:40
Speaker 2: and went a year early, graduated a year early from
43:42
Speaker 2: law school, worked hard for everything he did in his
43:45
Speaker 2: whole life. He's got a pretty interesting story, but the
43:48
Speaker 2: media isn't as captured by that. So given all that,
43:53
Speaker 2: you still have to just run on your ideas. You
43:56
Speaker 2: have to– not be brought down by this fact that
44:00
Speaker 2: you know people in their head are thinking, can she
44:03
Speaker 2: really do this job? Well, they allow men a little
44:07
Speaker 2: more leeway of thinking, yeah, of course he can do
44:09
Speaker 2: that job. And so when I first ran for Senate,
44:12
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe how many people asked me constantly, can
44:15
Speaker 2: a woman really win? And I would say, well, a
44:17
Speaker 2: woman won in Texas, and a woman became governor in Texas,
44:21
Speaker 2: so I bet they could win in Minnesota. This is
44:23
Speaker 2: in 2005. And then I would go to groups of men,
44:26
Speaker 2: steel workers, and make my case, and they kind of
44:28
Speaker 2: have their arms crossed. I could tell they weren't. And
44:31
Speaker 2: so finally, I would say to that question, I'm not
44:34
Speaker 2: running as a woman candidate. I'm proud to be a
44:36
Speaker 2: woman candidate. I'm not running that way. I'm running on
44:39
Speaker 2: my ideas and when I want to get done. And
44:42
Speaker 2: then I would say, which I would never use now,
44:44
Speaker 2: it doesn't quite make sense, but I would say, because
44:46
Speaker 2: if I was just running as a woman candidate, I
44:49
Speaker 2: wouldn't win because half the voters are men. And then
44:53
Speaker 2: they would take their arms down and put them down like, yeah.
44:56
Speaker 2: And I think what they were getting at was that
44:58
Speaker 2: I was willing to say, I have something to offer
45:02
Speaker 2: besides being a woman candidate. Whether that's fair or not,
45:06
Speaker 2: it was in their heads. And I think it's still
45:08
Speaker 2: in their heads today. And so you have to just
45:11
Speaker 2: put it aside, not talk about it all the time.
45:14
Speaker 2: You asked it, so I did. And then move on
45:16
Speaker 2: to how you want to win. And then the other
45:18
Speaker 2: thing I'll say that I learned Oh, and you also
45:21
Speaker 2: have to show you can do tough jobs, and then
45:23
Speaker 2: people say you're too tough. Like, you can't win, right?
45:25
Speaker 2: But you, again, have to just deal with that. So
45:27
Speaker 2: the other thing that I learned from all of this
45:31
Speaker 2: and Hillary's election and what happened was just the power
45:36
Speaker 2: of what her example was later. And I heard someone
45:40
Speaker 2: say the other day that they were talking about how
45:42
Speaker 2: when Billie Jean King had to be the first woman
45:45
Speaker 2: and compete in that crazy match she had– with Bobby
45:50
Speaker 2: Riggs and be in a lot of your listeners will
45:52
Speaker 2: have to Google it to know what I'm talking about.
45:54
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter. I get it. But the point is,
45:56
Speaker 2: she said afterwards, I felt like I had all of
45:58
Speaker 2: women's sports on my shoulders because I was the first one.
46:02
Speaker 2: And that's how I felt for Hillary. And so what
46:04
Speaker 2: I would say to her and have when I've seen her, well,
46:07
Speaker 2: look what happened in 2018. Yeah, maybe this didn't go
46:11
Speaker 2: the way it was supposed to. But then in 2018,
46:14
Speaker 2: it got all these women to run, all these people
46:16
Speaker 2: of color to run. who probably wouldn't have run before,
46:19
Speaker 2: but they felt that the job had to continue and
46:22
Speaker 2: the job had to be finished. And you look at
46:24
Speaker 2: that day after that inauguration, that dark day, where millions
46:28
Speaker 2: of people marched all over the country, and then nine
46:30
Speaker 2: days later when the Muslim ban comes out and people
46:33
Speaker 2: are spontaneously showing up at the airports, or on day 100,
46:37
Speaker 2: my favorite march, the March for Science, what do we want? Science.
46:40
Speaker 2: When do we want it? After peer review. Or into
46:43
Speaker 2: the summer where the 48 Democrats hang together and are
46:48
Speaker 2: joined by three Republicans and vote down that repeal of
46:52
Speaker 2: the Affordable Care Act or that victory for dignity or
46:55
Speaker 2: decency when Doug Jones wins in Alabama, the students in Parkland.
47:00
Speaker 2: This is an arc that we're on, right? And that
47:03
Speaker 2: arc started the day that he got elected and then
47:05
Speaker 2: the day that he got sworn in. So when people
47:08
Speaker 2: tell me, oh, I can't stand this anymore. A tweet,
47:10
Speaker 2: this is getting so sickening. How do you run against
47:13
Speaker 2: all these people? How is he safe? We are on
47:16
Speaker 2: a march. There are so many people that are part
47:18
Speaker 2: of this. And this is not, I am not worried
47:21
Speaker 2: about them getting disenchanted about voting. I am not worried
47:25
Speaker 2: about them, no matter what mean-spirited purging they do of
47:29
Speaker 2: electoral rolls or all this stuff. People are going to
47:32
Speaker 2: find a way and we are going to have justice
47:34
Speaker 2: back in this country.
47:37
Speaker 1: That sounds like a great place to end this interview.
47:38
Speaker 1: But I have one more question, which is as important
47:41
Speaker 1: as all the other ones, which is Positive America is
47:44
Speaker 1: going to be in Minneapolis in about two weeks. What
47:48
Speaker 1: should we eat and do while we're there?
47:50
Speaker 2: Oh, well, there is much to do there. Let's see. Well,
47:54
Speaker 2: there are a lot of fun places. There's a very
47:57
Speaker 2: famous hamburger called the Juicy Lucy that maybe you've heard of.
48:00
Speaker 1: Do you have a preference of which of the two places?
48:02
Speaker 2: Are you kidding? You think I know? Not going to
48:05
Speaker 2: go there with you. Let's see.
48:07
Speaker 1: It's a very esoteric Minnesota point.
48:09
Speaker 2: There's a very cool walk across the Mississippi in Minneapolis,
48:13
Speaker 2: right near where I live, actually, near where I announced,
48:16
Speaker 2: but there was a blizzard. It'll be a nice day.
48:18
Speaker 2: You can go over the Stone Arch Bridge and get
48:20
Speaker 2: a sense of the original Minneapolis, which was a mill town.
48:24
Speaker 2: And then there's the Prince Museum. Of course, we love
48:28
Speaker 2: Prince and miss him every single day. Um, there is, um,
48:32
Speaker 2: the Mary Tyler Moore statue. Now that really has your name,
48:36
Speaker 2: your listeners there. Now we're going retro for you where
48:38
Speaker 2: she like, um, took her hat and threw it up
48:42
Speaker 2: in the air and there's a statue commemorating it. Um,
48:46
Speaker 2: and then there's just a lot of, it is a
48:48
Speaker 2: great town for young people. This is my pitch for
48:50
Speaker 2: people to move there. Um, or you can come to
48:53
Speaker 2: our campaign headquarters. Now that is exciting. Very cool building,
48:56
Speaker 2: you know, you'll, you'll like it. Um, and, there are
49:00
Speaker 2: so many young people there just because it is an
49:04
Speaker 2: exciting place to be. It's got great theater, it's got
49:07
Speaker 2: great music, and it's got great food, and people are
49:13
Speaker 2: very involved in the community in such a positive way,
49:16
Speaker 2: which brings us to where we started, which is exactly
49:19
Speaker 2: why I'm running for president.
49:20
Speaker 1: Well done.
49:21
Speaker 2: You've got the most diverse and interesting generation that we've
49:26
Speaker 2: ever seen. And I'm proud to say my daughter is
49:27
Speaker 2: part of that generation. And we want to be able
49:30
Speaker 2: to give them their place at the table instead of
49:33
Speaker 2: going backwards to another century.
49:35
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great way to end it, Senator Klobuchar.
49:37
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on Pond Save America. And
49:39
Speaker 1: good luck out there on the campaign trail.
49:40
Speaker 2: Thanks, Dan.