NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Interview
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CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. If you needed proof that Bernie Sanders is surging look no further than to two new polls we have for you this morning. A New York Times Siena College poll shows Sanders taking the lead in Iowa with 25%, ahead of three other candidates bunched in the teens, Buttigieg, Biden, and Warren. Amy Klobuchar is at eight percent. And in New Hampshire our brand new NBC News Marist poll among likely Democratic primary voters in that state has the exact same order with Sanders again pulling into the lead. Amy Klobuchar got some good news in that poll, double digits there. And she also got the endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader, that state's largest newspaper. And Senator Klobuchar joins me now. From Waterloo, Iowa, Senator Klobuchar, welcome back to Meet The Press.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Well, hey, Chuck. It's great to be back.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, you get to be in Iowa for a day. But you spent yesterday, half of it in Iowa and half of it listening to the president's first -- president's legal team, give their first day of defense. What did you make of the tact they're taking here, which is essentially accepting some of the facts, questioning the interpretation. Do you think they're making a case against witnesses?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
I think the House manager made the case, Chuck. And I am simply, I just keep looking over at colleagues and thinking, "You want to get to the truth. You know, you got elected to this job not to serve at the pleasure of the president, but to represent the people." And I don't know how they can cut out facts and evidence, and then as I heard my colleague just say on your show, and then he says, "Well, it's circumstantial." Well, come on. Let's get to the founding fathers' musical -- Hamilton and talk about the people who were in the room where it happened. That would be Bolton. That would be Mulvaney. They have the facts. They were there. And no matter how they vote on impeachment in the end, Americans want a fair trial. The polls show, overwhelmingly, people want to hear from the witnesses. So that's what I keep thinking when I hear the back and forth. Let's just get this done, hear the witnesses. And that is not what they're doing. They are afraid to hear from those witnesses.
CHUCK TODD:
Dick Durbin, your colleague from Illinois, number two in leadership, is sounding a pretty pessimistic note that you're not going to have the votes for witnesses. You have said that you have been running, essentially, during the breaks, talking to Republican colleagues. You're usually involved in whatever bipartisan gangs --
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
-- used to exist. Do you share his pessimism?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
I still wait until that vote happens. People surprise you. And I think about these moments of courage, which I keep discussing with my Republican colleagues. You know, John McCain with that arm of his that was, because of torture, he could hardly move it and lift it, when he voted no against repealing the Affordable Care Act. I think about Lisa Murkowski, along with my friends Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill, when they just didn't have the stomach to vote for, then Judge Kavanaugh, because of what had gone on in that hearing and in the past. Those were moments of courage where people voted against their immediate political interest. But they did things for the country. And that's what we're asking them to do, not even actually for their vote on impeachment right now, no, the vote just to allow witnesses to come forward. Because zero witnesses plus zero evidence equals zero justice.
CHUCK TODD:
Your campaigning to win the Democratic nomination. You believe one of the things that makes you a better candidate is that you can beat Donald Trump, which implies you expect to be facing Donald Trump.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
So let me ask it this way: When do we get to the point where it should be the voters instead of the senators that make this decision in your mind?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Look, right now we're doing two things at once. I'm a mom, I can do that. We've got the impeachment proceeding going on with those hundred jurors who are there representing the public. But as I say when I'm out here in Iowa, "You know what? You are the jurors. You are ultimately the jurors in the primary and in the election." And to me what you want for a candidate, you want someone that recognizes that, that this is a decency check in addition to an economic check on this president. And if we want to win, we have to bring people with us that don't agree with everything that's said on that debate stage. I don't agree with everything that's said on that debate stage. But I do know that I bring the receipts of bringing in people in the suburbs and the rural areas in a big way. And that's why I think you see me surging, going up slowly but surely, in these states, getting the New York Times endorsement, the Quad-City Times, the biggest paper in New Hampshire. This all matters Chuck, it's momentum.
CHUCK TODD:
But let me ask you this. As you've seen, it's clear this is a very divided party right now. But you're divided for different reasons. There's some ideological divides, there's divides in hand-wringing over who's the best candidate to take on Trump, what should the vote be? Let me ask this: How quickly do you think that Democrats need to unite around the front-runner, when there is a front-runner, meaning, you know -- and we know -- you know it when you see it, okay? How quickly do you think that needs to happen?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Quickly. And I envision that happening not right away --
CHUCK TODD:
So let me ask you this --
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
-- not with the field that we have --
CHUCK TODD:
-- if you don't --
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
But let me just say, when it is time, we must unify because what unites us is so much bigger than what divides us. Our people, that's what they want to do. And I think they are ready to march forward together. But we must have candidates that are willing to do that and lead. And I think we have that.
CHUCK TODD:
You're ready to support whether it's Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren, obviously you would support yourself. Are you ready to support any of those --
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Obviously.
CHUCK TODD:
-- any of those folks?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
I'm ready to support the winner, but I make a strong case here that if you look at how we've won in states like Louisiana and Kentucky and in Wisconsin, where we beat Scott Walker, or in Michigan, this is about candidates that reflected their states. I think Senator Sanders idea of kicking 149 million Americans off their current health insurance in four years is wrong. That's why I don't think he should be leading the ticket. I think I should be leading the ticket because my ideas are much more in sync with bold ways of getting things done, taking on the pharmaceutical companies, nonprofit public option, having an education plan that actually matches our economy, and the experience of getting things done. I'm the only one in the Senate running left on that stage that has passed over 100 bills as the lead Democrat. That matters to people right now.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you okay with the fact that if you're successful with witnesses you cannot be in Iowa on caucus night?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
That will be, that will be what happens. I've always believed that the obstacles on the path are not obstacles, they are the path. If that happens, I think the people of this state and all the four early states, if it goes on that long, they get that we have a constitutional job to do. And that is what I will be doing.
CHUCK TODD:
Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, be safe on the campaign trail and you guys try to run back and forth --
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:
Thanks, Chuck. It's great to be on.
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