MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: "Senator Klobuchar (D-MN)."
Interview
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O'DONNELL: Joining us now is Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a presidential candidate. Senator Klobuchar, what was your reaction when you read the "New York Times" article about this on Sunday?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I would say it wasn't one of surprise, Lawrence. And I think you know my role in that hearing, I was the one that was calmly asking the judge, trying to mesh the stories, the credible story of Dr. Blasey Ford with his story. And I asked him if perhaps he had blacked out and that's why he didn't remember and then he shot back at me and asked me if I had blacked out. He later apologized, but that's been forever etched in my memory and part of what I thought about this whole thing, one, he shouldn't have been hand-picked to begin with. He was hand-picked because of his expansive view of executive power. But then, secondly, the way he behaved at that hearing, put aside even the facts, was outrageous. And he brought down not just the Supreme Court but the whole judiciary with his demeanor and how he was so partisan during that hearing. From there, as you know, it launched into this additional very brief FBI investigation to explore some of these other allegations. And that's something I've never really had much time to talk about and why I'm not surprised at all by their findings and that is that we were put into this room and we had one hour, and then the other party took an hour and we could come back. And I went back there three or four times, and it was literally stacks of documents like this, all mixed up together. There would be cranks basically, like tips, strange tips that were called in, just nutty things, but then mixed in would be an actual one, like what you may have just referred to, things like that. And it was impossible to triage, and then you add to that the calls I got, as well as other senators got, which we then tried to report. And I look at this more than just the FBI. It's really an issue of the White House that was limiting the focus of this investigation. And that's why I've called to get those documents. I think that's what we need. We need those documents. And I know it's similar to what the House is talking about. You can't make a decision about impeachment or anything like that until you have this underlying information.
O'DONNELL: When the process was stopped by Dr. Ford's emergence and there came a point where Jeff Flake decided to basically join with the Democrats to delay the confirmation process and have more of an FBI background check, what was very clear pretty quickly was that, OK, this was going to be a time-limited FBI background check. And once I heard that, that the FBI background check is time limited, I think we all knew then it can't possibly be complete because -- I mean, you know that the background checks that they run on your confirmations. They don't have any time limit on it. They don't deliver you a background check until they have finished it. And some of them take longer than others for a bunch of reasons.
KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. I mean, I've had numerous judicial nominees, U.S. attorney nominees that went on for months and they look at people from their past from high school like you're talking about, from college and can take a long time. And so that's why this was - this time limit made it very hard to look into all of these tips and allegations but the concerning part is when you see those again, I can't reveal what I saw but when you see these you know there were people that desperately wanted to be contacted and had information and it was just a sham is what it was in the end. And it's very unfortunate for our democracy and that's why I continue to believe and I've always believed that two sets of things have to come out. The first is the 100,000 pages of documents from the time that he worked in the White House and the White House counsel's office. We were denied access to those documents to begin with and the second were these that we just discussed and that's one of the reasons by the way Lawrence, that I really want to be President because I think one, we have to nominate judges that have the integrity to never act like that again at a hearing. And that we also want to have a process that works, a vetting process that the public would be proud of and that is not what happened with this President when he hand-picked this nominee.
O'DONNELL: Senator, we have to squeeze in a break. When we come back, I'd like to ask you your position on impeachment, some of the fellow senators and if presidential candidates have called for impeachment of Brett Kavanaugh and I want to get to other campaign issues right after this break.
KLOBUCHAR: Yes, because I'm here in Philadelphia at the workers summit here.
O'DONNELL: We're going to hear all about that.
KLOBUCHAR: Where there's a lot going on with our campaign.
O'DONNELL: All right, we'll hear all about it after break. We'll be right back.
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O'DONNELL: We're back with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a candidate for President of United States and Senator, as you know at least six of the Democratic presidential candidates have called for the impeachment of Brett Kavanaugh including 3 senators, Senator Warren, Senator Harrison, Senator Booker. Senator Sanders has called for investigation. Joe Biden has called for an investigation stopping short of impeachment at this point. What is your position on impeachment of Brett Kavanaugh?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, I think I was the first to come out of anyone and I said that we should have an investigation and the reason I said that is because of what I just talked about. You need to have the information as compelling as these reports are, you've got to look at the underlying documentation and that is something that the House who can start an impeachment proceeding have to obtain. And I did my own request from the Senate Judiciary standpoint but the House is going to have to get it to make those decisions and I do think we have to uncover what this is really about is that they're lying under oath, right? That is at the core of this. I hate lying Lawrence, I hate it and I certainly don't want judges that lie under oath and so that is what this is about at its core.
O'DONNELL: All right, let's take a quick look at the latest NBC news Wallstreet journal poll of the president's candidates. Joe Biden is still at the lead at 31; Elizabeth Warren, second at 25; Bernie Sanders at 14 people; Pete Buttigieg at 7; Kamala Harris at 5; Andrew Yang us at 4 and there's Amy Klobuchar at 2; Cory Booker at 2 but what might be the most important number in the entire poll only 9 percent of voters have definitely decided who they're going to vote for. That means 91 percent are still available for persuasion.
KLOBUCHAR: There you go.
O'DONNELL: And Senator Klobuchar, you are in Philadelphia, a crucial state trying to persuade some of those 91 percent who are open to. What brings your campaign to Philadelphia tonight?
KLOBUCHAR: A very important tour that we are taking to make the point that remember what happened in 2016 Lawrence, we lost 3 states that we should have won. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. So this is the blue wall tour of those important which should be blue states that we need to keep in our column in this 2020 election. And so for that reason plus the fact that I'm from the Midwest, watch for those polls in Iowa coming up by the way Lawrence. Just a little tip and I've been gaining momentum in fact even in that poll you just showed I doubled my support. I'm ahead of 19 people in this field and one of the points I'm going to make here where we're going to meet with workers in Pittsburgh and be with a number of students at the university of Pittsburgh and go to a dairy farm in Wisconsin and meet with workers at the port there in Detroit is, I want to talk about infrastructure, this President's broken promises. He promised us a bunch of building of bridges and roads and rail and doing something about rural broadband. These people haven't felt it. Our farmers, those soy bean farmers that are having their soybeans mount up in the bins out there. The trade war, the effect that it's had on people. We've gotten to a $891 billion trade deficit where he's treating these farmers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos so this is the argument I'm taking it. I'm taking it right to where he won to areas in Wisconsin and areas in Pennsylvania and I'm going to keep doing this because yes, it's about the early states where I think you're going to see me rising up and doing quite well. We're gaining endorsements all the time but it's also about these blue wall states that we have to win and as I said at the debate, I don't want to be the President for half of America. I want to be the President for all America and I want to bring these people with me.
O'DONNELL: When you're in Michigan, will you be meeting with the striking auto workers at the GM plants and do you support their strike.
KLOBUCHAR: Of course I will. I don't think you can go to Michigan and not meet with them right now. Here they are, we've seen some really hefty profits that GM has brought in and yet the workers, so many of them in temporary status, so many of them not sharing profits, health care issues. There's all kinds of things and you've got to be able to have shared prosperity not only with that company but really across America and that's why I favor increasing the minimum wage and why we have to do something about anti-trust enforcement. That was the subject of the hearing that I co-chaired today. There has to be more balance here in our economy so everyone will share in the prosperity and that is something that Donald Trump has not delivered for these people that he made all these promises to. All he's done lately when it comes to the economy is whine and people don't want a whiner in the White House. They want someone that's going to bring people together, change the tone and move this country forward and that's where - that's where I come in and what I've been talking about since the moment I announced in the middle of that blizzard.
O'DONNELL: We all remember that shot in the middle of a blizzard. Presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you very much for joining us again tonight. Please come back.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.
O'DONNELL: Really appreciate it.
KLOBUCHAR: Great to be on Lawrence.
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