MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Interview

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MADDOW: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifying today.Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Democratic member of the Judiciary  Committee, joins us live now.Senator, thanks for being with us tonight.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.

MADDOW: I know this must have been an exhausting day.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I just -- she was so graceful and so dignified, went  through every question you could imagine, and I was just shocked by what  happened actually in the afternoon. We had had a hearing where we at least  got some sense of what this evidence is. Of course, we still don`t have  the man that was in the room, Mark Judge, and we don`t have any of the  other witnesses that we`ve been allowed to subpoena.

But in the afternoon, they just turned into it a red meat, scorched earth  policy moment. They just left everything behind and decided to make it  into a political circus. And I was shocked by it, but I still think  America saw this woman in the morning. They saw her credibility, and they  saw her answer questions.

MADDOW: There was a remarkable moment in the afternoon session where you  were pressing judge Kavanaugh about his credibility as far as what I could  tell you were getting at in terms of the way he has talked about his past  drinking, whether or not he had been honest about drinking and whether he  always remembered things that had happened while he had been drinking.

And there was this moment where he turned it around and started asking  about you drinking in a way that you seemed to taken aback. He actually  came back from a break and apologized about that. Do you have any sense of  what was going on there?

KLOBUCHAR: I think that I was asking some tough questions. I was asking  him, because he has said this isn`t a he said/she said. This is a he  said/they said.

He has said that he has never blacked out or gotten so drunk that he  doesn`t remember what happened the next day. I asked him, has that ever  happened or where at least you partially didn`t remember what happened?

Because I was trying to get at how this could be that we have such  different accounts. And instead of answering the question, he turned it.  And he did apologize, but I don`t think anyone prepares for a Supreme Court  nominee asking you if you blacked out, but that happened to me, and I  firmly told him that after he apologized that growing up with my dad who is  an alcoholic, but through treatment is now sober at age 90, that you are  very careful about drinking when you grow up with something like that.

And so I just thought it was another moment where he wasn`t answering the  question, and my whole focus today was let`s get that FBI investigation  open again. Let`s do the background check. Even if we had one week,  Rachel, one week, and they`re rushing this through, it appears they have  not canceled the vote for 9:30 tomorrow morning.

And I think most of America watching that would have said, could we just  get the facts? Could you get the polygraph expert that said she passed  with flying colors where it`s been verified? They won`t even allow us to  call that expert.

MADDOW: Watching from home, just watching on a screen, one of the things  that surprised me about Judge Kavanaugh that I didn`t expect is he seemed  not just angry and aggressive, but like he was having trouble controlling  himself, trouble controlling his impulses, including in that interaction  with you and the subsequent apology.

But when it came to the morning session and watching Dr. Blasey Ford talk  about her experience and her allegation, I wonder how you saw that as a  former prosecutor. I know you worked on sexual assault cases.
Was there anything about her testimony that spoke to you about her -- her  credibility in terms of what you`ve seen from other similar cases?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, there was a drawing I saw later that said whose supposed  to be emotional? She was steady. He was the one that didn`t seem as  steady and was more emotional.

But what she was doing was basically laying out the fact that you have so  well-articulated during the show is that she actually has talked about this  in the past. She said to it a therapist. Her husband had remembered the  name Brett Kavanaugh.

She has with some detail remembered the assault. And all she`s asked is  that the FBI figure out when Mark Judge was working at the Safeway when she  saw him later, because that would help her get the exact date. And she has  said she`d like to see it open, but she can`t get the president to reopen  it. Senator Grassley could get the president to reopen it.

All he would have to say is we`re holding the vote for a week until we get  some information, like we would with any other nominee. And certainly,  Judge Kavanaugh could just make a phone call to president and get him to  reopen it. And then if his account is correct we will have the  information. And I think that is the search for truth would end there.  But we are not getting that investigation as far as we know as of right now  at this moment in time.

MADDOW: Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, thank you for being here  tonight. I know that vote, at least for now is scheduled 9:30 tomorrow  morning. Good luck. Keep us apprised.

KLOBUCHAR: It is. Thank you, Rachel.

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