MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Interview

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And joining us now is Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She`s chair of the Senate Rules Committee which oversees the administering of election.

And, Senator Klobuchar, you`re also a member of the judiciary committee with oversight jurisdiction over the Justice Department.

Is anyone interested in finding out what federal authorities are doing about phone calls like this?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): I am. And I have been using my position as chair of the rules committee to push this out here. We can`t have a democracy if there are attacks made on people like Katie, who is a guardian of our democracy as secretary of state. I had a hearing in the rules committee and we heard shocking testimony not only from Katie, who came out for the hearing, but also a guy named Al Schmidt, who is a Republican election official in Philadelphia whose family was threatened.

This was a message sent saying, tell the truth or your three kids will be fatally shot. The names of his 7-year-old, 11-year-old, 14-year-old all put out public, their address. A photo of their house.

You know what, Lawrence? He is not running again. And we heard from even a conservative secretary of state in Kentucky who reported that because of intimidation and various things that had happened, that less people are signing up to be volunteer election officials.

So the effect of all this, no matter where it comes from, the effect of all this is a democracy on fire. And that`s why it is so important to go after this and why I think we should make it a federal crime when you see the numbers out of the Reuters report and you find out there has been no investigation of what`s going on when there is 800 threats with legal experts saying 100 of them could be prosecutable.

And that`s why our bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, that every Democrat in the United States Senate is supportive of basically has in there a clear federal crime if someone intimidates, threatens or coerces those who administer our elections. These local election officials -- go ahead, Lawrence.

O`DONNELL: Sorry. I was going to say, imagine how much speeding there would be on our highways if no one of got arrested for speeding ever. That`s where we are right now in these phone calls. This is a terrorism program that they are launching against any officials involved in elections, and if there aren`t going to be any arrests, when the calls are criminal, and not all are criminal. They are not all threatening death.

But the ones that are criminal and threatening death, if there are no arrests they will keep happening and people will keep quitting and not running for these jobs.

[22:15:07]

KLOBUCHAR: Exactly, or even volunteering in elections.

The other thing that was pointed out is in rural areas the guy from Philadelphia was saying how he had enough protection, but in some rural areas, there isn`t even enough police and others to protect these officials. So I think that this is, should be a number one focus, and I asked Merrick Garland about it during the hearing, the recent hearing in judiciary, and I am going to keep pushing it.

It would be very helpful to have a clear federal crime identified for going after election officials.

O`DONNELL: Yeah, I mean, this is the use of terrorism to try to get the election outcome that you want and getting that outcome by driving out of office the people who will handle elections honestly.

KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. And it is -- when you hear their stories and you see them choke-up when all they wanted to do was serve our country, you know that this is deadly wrong, what is going on. And it`s, of course, a part of the big lie that has been perpetrated. But it`s also part of the corrosiveness we are seeing in our politics, which includes, of course, the 13 Republicans in the House of Representatives that simply, I guess, had the gall to vote for broadband and to vote for better roads and bridges and rail in their districts and their states. And then they are the subject of death threats.

This just has to stop. And I believe this as a former prosecutor, that the only way you stop it is by making clear you are going to enforce the law. In some cases, that means we are going to have to make sure there is laws on the books. And there is a whole bunch of other reasons, as you know, Lawrence, why we want to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, including making sure that people can vote freely, safely, in any way that they want from mailing in their ballot to voting early, when we have seen the attack on voting across this country, everyone should have the freedom to vote, and certainly they should have the freedom to be able to be safe if they are an election official.

O`DONNELL: Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you very much for joining this discussion tonight. Really appreciate it.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Lawrence.

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