MSNBC "Rachel Maddow Show"- Transcript: National Security

Interview

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Joining us now is Senator Amy Klobuchar from the great state of Minnesota.
Senator, it`s great to see you. Thanks for your time tonight.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: Well, thanks, Rachel. We must point
out, I thought you are going to have me on in boxing when I listened to the
lead in, but let us remember that Harry Reid was once a boxer.

MADDOW: He was once a boxer.

KLOBUCHAR: Exactly and I think, you know, he looked pretty tough in that
photo.

MADDOW: Well, you know, when he first did his home video explaining I know
I look like I have been run over. I know I looked terrible. Here`s what
happened, he gave this whole litany about, you know, listen, I wasn`t
fighting Manny. I was not fighting Floyd. I wasn`t riding a bull.

I wasn`t doing all this other stuff. I slapped myself in the face with
some exercise equipment. It feels like we`re in a new fighting era in
Washington where we don`t know exactly what the contours are.

I mean, President Obama vetoing this legislation, but also the partial
shutdown maybe coming. I feel like I don`t know what to expect.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, first of all, let`s look at what we`re fighting for on
Homeland Security. People in Minnesota woke up on Sunday morning to see a
video. Someone from Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group, the ones that killed 60
people in that mall in Kenya basically standing up and saying, you know, we
want to go after Mall of America in Minnesota.

We want to go after Edmonton Mall in Canada, a mall in London, and really
calling on people to do it, calling on them to go after Jewish-owned
shopping centers. That happened.

We are very glad the FBI and Homeland Security secretary said, look, you
should be fell free to keep going to the mall and our people, they stood
tall. They went on with their day.

I talked that night to 500 hospitality workers that worked half of them in
the mall, half of them near the mall. They went to work that day. They
were people working at the front desk of the hotels.

People working at the restaurants, pizza delivery people, they did their
jobs. And the least that we can see coming out of the Republican side
right now is to fund Homeland Security at a time when we have cyber
security threats out of North Korea.

We`ve got people being shot in Paris. We`re going to say to these
terrorists, well, you know what? We`re having a fight over extraneous
amendments on immigration reform, which will put on by the
Republicans in the House, so we`re going to fund down our security.

That is not the message we want to send to that guy that did the video. I
was really glad my colleagues stood together today. I`m hopeful that
senators like Lindsay Graham, John McCain, are saying this thing is in the
Texas courts right now. Let`s get this done and vote on a purely funded
Homeland Security bill for this country.

MADDOW: Do you actually expect that will happen? I mean, we`re getting to
the point right now where I know this has been threatened for a long time.
Everybody sort of felt like this was a brinksmanship game.

This is a way for the Republicans to talk with their base and fight it out
with their base. But we`re getting really, really close to the deadline
now and it seems to me like what Mitch McConnell put forward is his way to
avoid this thing, I can`t see it happening.

Not with conservatives particularly on the House side mobilizing against it
and saying that would be a terrible vote. And nobody should cast that vote
if they are Republicans.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I`m hopeful talking to some of my Republican colleagues
that some common sense will prevail here. The key is the House. They have
to get their act together and figure out how they will maneuver this
procedurally.

We can have debates about immigration reform and the courts can battle it
out. It is very important to me. I was a big supporter of the
comprehensive bill and we need to move forward.

But right now this is about funding Homeland Security. Not just about
terrorism at the Mall of America. It is also about our firefighters, the
coast guard, and thousands of employees that will be furloughed or have to
go to work without pay.

And it`s just not the message that we want to send where we`ve got people
being burned in cages and you`ve got, you know, young people that are
watching this on TV. This is not the message that we want to send to the
rest of the world.

MADDOW: In terms of how things work in Washington or don`t, do you think
that things are going to change meaningfully in Washington now that we do
have this new dynamic that we`ve never had before under this president
where he is vetoing stuff.

The Republicans are saying they are going to try to override the veto. I
see that there is no way that they can override the veto. I mean, we are
going to have votes on that over the next week.

The president sent his veto message today, it was stern and without
fanfare, do you think that changes the dynamic in Washington at all?

KLOBUCHAR: I think that right now we have a lot of energy coming out of
the president`s State Of The Union where we finally talked about things
like income inequality and how we have to move forward for the middle
class.

And you have heard some Republicans talk about funding infrastructure,
moving forward on some education issues. I think at some point since they
are now in charge of both houses, we`ll have to get to some governing.

For me the first real test, Rachel, is what happens with this bill this
week. Are they going to be able to shut down some extraneous amendments
and fund this simple Homeland Security bill that was negotiated between
Democrats and Republicans?

So that I can go home to Minnesota and say to those workers that go to the
mall every day and do their jobs, you know what? The United States of
America is behind you. That is what we should be doing in Washington.

MADDOW: Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator, it is great to see you,
thanks very much for being here.

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