NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Interview

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CHUCK TODD: The candidate who introduced herself in a big way Tuesday night with a strong, surprising third-place finish in New Hampshire. But can Amy Klobuchar keep the momentum going? She joins me next.

CHUCK TODD: Welcome back. If there was one constant about Senator Amy Klobuchar's campaign, it's that she's had very strong debate performances that didn't translate into strong poll numbers. All that changed in New Hampshire when her powerful Friday night debate generated big crowds that weekend and a surging third-place finish, well ahead of Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. The question now, does she have an encore? And Amy Klobuchar joins me now from Las Vegas. Senator Klobuchar, welcome back to Meet the Press.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Well, thanks, Chuck. I can't think of a better place to have an encore than Las Vegas.

CHUCK TODD: There you go.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: So there we go.

CHUCK TODD: Yeah, there you go. Fun way to tease that. But let me talk about that. You know, one of the hallmarks of your New Hampshire campaign is you essentially out-evented everybody. I think, by our count, you ended up doing more events in New Hampshire than any of the other major candidates. That translated into something there, the end of that campaign. You now are suddenly going from a one-state campaign to this thing's about to scale up in a hurry. Are you able to put together a campaign in order to become one of the leading front-runners?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: I am, Chuck. And we're really buoyed by what we've seen here in Nevada. I got the endorsement of the Las Vegas Sun and a recent poll in the Review Journal had me in double digits, so that's a major change for us. What has happened since that debate in just a little over a week is that we raised over $12 million online, mostly from just regular people, new people who gave. That's the first time in a campaign like this that you've seen a surge from people just seeing a debate and deciding, "You know what? I like this person and I think she's going to have my back. And I think she can lead this ticket to victory," which is the number one concern of Democrats. So we are doing multiple events here. We had over a thousand people in Reno just a day or two ago, in Las Vegas now, and we're just taking this message all over the state.

CHUCK TODD: $12 million in a week is impressive. $300 million from Michael Bloomberg is what you're facing. And I say this because you guys are fighting for the same part of the party here. I mean, it is - that has got to be daunting. On one hand, you've got some money, you can start building a national campaign, but you're facing this onslaught.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Yeah. I mean, honestly, is it daunting? Yes, because I do things like go on your show,take tough questions, and then at the same time, he is running more ads on whatever he wants during that same time. That's what life is, and I think what needs to happen here is that he needs to go on shows like this, which he hasn't done. He just can't hide behind the airwaves. He has to answer questions. And of course, I think he should be on that debate stage, which eventually he will be, because I can't beat him on the airwaves, but I can beat him on the debate stage. And I think people of America deserve that to make a decision.

CHUCK TODD: You know, when you looked at the New Hampshire exit poll, you saw that the sort of -- the non-Sanders wing of the party, whatever we want to call this, the pragmatists, the centrists, whatever, whatever title you want to give to it, it is larger than what Sanders had. But at the end of the day, you guys aren't pragmatic enough. Let me show you something Politico wrote: "The pragmatic, compromising Democratic moderates apparently can't pragmatically agree to compromise on a preferred presidential candidate. Instead, they have handed their ideological intra-party nemesis, Sanders, the bragging rights in the first two contests even as he hasn't touched 30 percent of the vote in either." If you guys don't coalesce around somebody, he could be the leading delegate guy after Super Tuesday, and there's suddenly not enough delegates left to stop him.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: I don't see it that way at all, Chuck. This is a primary and we're not going to go back in some back room, three or four people, and just say, "Okay, you got it. I don't." We're competing, and the voters of this country get to make that decision. And eventually people will drop out of this race, but right now, this is a competition and that's how it should be. I also think people understand that what unites us is bigger than what divides us. I was the one on that debate stage, when asked, "Should we have a socialist leading the ticket?" I was the only one that raised my hand, even though I get along with Bernie. We came into the Senate together. We've worked on pharmaceutical prices together. My argument is that while I may not have the money of Michael Bloomberg, I will get the money from people as this goes on, as I emerge as a stronger candidate. We now are going to have teams in every single Super Tuesday state. I'm starting to travel to these states and we're going to be doing events --

CHUCK TODD:Let me ask --

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR:-- in nearly all of them.

CHUCK TODD: -- let me ask you this. At some point--

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Okay.

CHUCK TODD: --you have to win. You have to win someplace.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Yes.

CHUCK TODD: And it can't just be in Minnesota. We know that's going to be an opportunity for you. Where are you going to win by Super Tuesday?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: There's so many states out there, I'm not going to list them all for you, but it's everything. You can just go around the country. I don't know which state I'll win, but I'm going to do better than anyone imagined. There's states like Colorado and Utah. There's states like North Carolina on Super Tuesday. There's states like Virginia. I can go around the map with you, but right now who knows who's going to win because a lot of us are clustered together in the polls? I don't have the biggest name ID or the biggest bank account, but I have this ability to bring people with me, and that's what you're seeing, slowly but surely, in every single state. And by the way, when the mayor, Mayor Bloomberg and the president were going at each other on Twitter, when the president claimed that the mayor was 5'4" and the mayor said, no, he's taller, I am the only one that has the claim to be 5'4" in this race, the only one.

CHUCK TODD: You take that, President Trump, I guess, on that front.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Yes.

CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you about Michael Bloomberg. Can you envision supporting him as the Democratic nominee, somebody who's been a Democrat, I think, only for a couple of years?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: I have been very clear that I am going to support whoever comes out of that convention who is our Democratic nominee. If he is the one that emerges from that convention, I would support him. I still do not think he is the best candidate for our country. I don't think that people look at the guy in the White House and say, "Oh, let's get someone richer." I think my background, where Donald Trump got $413 million from his dad in the course of his career, and my grandpa saved money in a coffee can in the basement to send my dad to a community college as he worked in the mines his whole life, you can't fit $413 million in a coffee can in the basement. I would also add the Midwest is not flyover country to me. I live there, and the people that live there are not poker chips in a bankrupt casino, since I'm in Vegas, of President Trump to me. They are my friends and neighbors. That's the area of the country that we need to win and that's also a strong case I'm going to have against Michael Bloomberg.

CHUCK TODD: If you're the Democratic nominee, are you going to be comfortable accepting funding help in different ways and, and from Michael Bloomberg? You know, there's a lot of progressive and Democratic groups that have, that have received a lot of money from him over the years. What, what is the price of that money in your mind?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Right now, I'm just focused on our own campaign, and that is based and fueled so much by those small contributions at AmyKlobuchar.com, that's allowed me to compete, a modicum of money to be able to compete on the airwaves with Mayor Bloomberg and others. That, to me, is where I am focused. And I believe in the future that, of course, when we get a nominee, there is going to be enough money because of the incredible interest of people in this country. Not just fired up Democrats, but also independents and moderate Republicans like I brought in in New Hampshire, like I'm going to bring in in Nevada. They also want to see a change in the White House and they don't agree with everything that's said on that debate stage, but they agree with me when it comes to a decency check and a patriotism check, even though they may not agree with everything on that debate state.

CHUCK TODD: Given some --

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: I'm really excited about the coalition I can put together to beat the president.

CHUCK TODD: Given some of the things that Michael Bloomberg has said, whether it's about women in the workplace that he's been accused of saying or about policing African Americans, redlining, things like that, if he's the Democratic nominee, does it make the job of going after President Trump's character harder?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Again, I don't think he's the best person to lead the ticket. I think I am. But I think, just like every other candidate, like I have come on your show multiple times and a number of other candidates have come on and answered tough questions, he's got to do the same thing. He hasn't gone on the Sunday shows since he announced. Instead, he's just running ads. And I don't think you should be able to hide behind the ads. I think you should not only go on these shows, I also think that he should take the debate stage. That's why I have actually been supportive of him on that debate stage because I know I can't beat him on the airwaves, but I can beat him on the debate stage.

CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you this. He's getting scrutinized for his record on criminal justice issues, and now so are you. And I'm curious about this. When it comes to your record, there's been a lot of people who have done more analysis of your record over the years as a prosecutor. Have you read these, these, these look-backs? And if you have, have you, have you sort of winced? Do you look back at your career and think, "Boy, there are some things that if I knew then what I know now, maybe I'd be a different prosecutor. Maybe I wouldn't have put so much trust always in law enforcement and what they say on the witness stand versus what somebody else says"? Do you at all acknowledge that maybe your record deserves a different look?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Well, of course, what we know now was not the same as what we knew then. And I have always been an advocate for criminal justice reform. That was a tough job. I supervised 10,000 to 15,000 cases every single year and we did a lot of good work and I was proud of our office, but we know that there is systematic racism in the criminal justice system. And the answer is, of course, something that I worked on when I had that job before being in the Senate is diversifying the office. It is doing things like videotaping interrogations, something I advocated for and we had in Minnesota. It is doing eyewitness ID in a different way that limits racial misidentifications. It is what we're doing now in the Senate, where I've been a co-sponsor of the First Step Act to reduce non-violent sentences. And as president, for good or bad, I think having someone that's actually led on these issues will be a good thing because I will be able to get that clemency board in place and move on to the Second Step Act because I have a deep understanding of the goods and the bads of the criminal justice system.

CHUCK TODD: Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, thank you for coming on, getting up extraordinarily early today and sharing your views. Thanks very much.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: It's all good. Thanks, Chuck.

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