MSNBC "Hardball" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Interview
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MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Tonight, the White House is suffering huge casualties on two fronts. Both are very bad for the president.
First, Trump`s longtime adviser and confidant Roger Stone was arrested, placed in shackles, and indicted by the special counsel all this morning. His indictment says he was in touch with senior Trump campaign officials about the release of those WikiLeaks documents leading up to the 2016 election.
Then came the news that Trump caved on the shutdown, announcing a deal to reopen the government without money for the border.
I`m joined right now by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Put it together. This is a historic day, Senator. And I -- I don`t know how -- they both seem bad for Trump. What`s what`s in it for the country, what happened today?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: What`s in it for the country is that finally these workers are going to be able to go back to work.
And I was listening to the rightful praise of the work that Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer and the rest of us did in standing our ground, and not giving into the president, because every time he gut-punches you.
But the real credit are those workers, 800,000 federal workers doing their jobs without pay. Everyone saw them at the airports, the prison workers, the people at that -- you name it, all of these security agencies, the FBI. I served some of them lunch today in the food line just a few blocks from the White House.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
KLOBUCHAR: It was an unbelievable thing that the president let this happen. And those workers are back to work.
MATTHEWS: I think it`s stupid. And I wonder if the Democratic Party, of which you`re a member, would be willing to say, no more government shutdowns. There are no excuses for them. This shouldn`t be a tool, an art -- part of the art of politics, shutting down our government as sort of an angry tantrum.
Can`t we -- can`t the leaderships of both parties just say, never again, we`re not going to do this anymore?
KLOBUCHAR: While, actually, Senator Warner has a bill, an interesting name to it, the STUPIDITY Act, which looks at doing that.
And I know he`s going to do some work on that bill. And there should be a way to do this, because these workers shouldn`t be a pawn. And that`s what this president has allowed to happen to this country.
And the other thing about this, Chris, is, I think when you have heard about the deals he made a New York, a lot of times, he would just walk away from the table, maybe he wouldn`t pay people.
Well, I think he found out today that you can`t do that to an entire country. You can`t do that to the people of America. And you can`t get by without paying American workers.
MATTHEWS: We do -- we`re looking at -- it`s a little unfair because we`re looking at a picture in the cross-screen from you, Senator, of Trump walking onto the steps there at the Rose Garden at the White House, a very historic spot, obviously, and he`s got his coat open.
And he`s got that ridiculous red tie about eight-feet-long. And he`s strutting. He says now, just a minute ago, he put out the word that he didn`t lose today. What do you make of that claim?
(LAUGHTER)
KLOBUCHAR: Well, the only people that lost really in this last 35 days were the American workers and the American people.
And just to look at it as a win-loss game is just typical of things that he`s said. But what we have to look at now is, what are we going to do over these next three weeks? Because this thing is over, what, the day after Valentine`s Day, right?
And the hope is that we can look at the security issues in a sensible, smart way, look at the technology, look at some of the border crossings, and not do what he was suggesting, which made no sense -- many security experts have said that -- but instead look at what works best at the border and stop this chaos and start governing from opportunity.
What I`m really worried about is what we`re not doing, pharmaceutical prices still rising. And he talks a big game on that. We have got proposals. We have to get them through. The ice sheet melting in Greenland, reaching a tipping point, we have to start moving on climate change.
And all the time he creates this chaos, it becomes harder and harder for the country to move forward and to compete in this international economy. And that`s what we have to get back to doing. And that is looking out and having the backs for the American people, and not allowing him to create more chaos.
So, if there was any win today, it was that finally someone said to him, enough is enough. We`re going back to work.
MATTHEWS: Well, congratulations on being the first positive voice tonight in this country. I`m glad to hear that.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: By the way, Roger Stone joins a growing list of people in Trump`s inner circle charged by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Look at this.
In addition to Roger Stone, you have the president`s longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, who pled guilty to lying to Congress. His campaign chair Paul Manafort was found guilty on bank and tax fraud charges.
Manafort`s deputy, Rick Gates, pleaded guilty to similar charges.
Trump`s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. His campaign adviser George Papadopoulos also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
This list is Watergate-length.
KLOBUCHAR: You know, in another way today -- talk about an I told you so day -- was for those of us who have been fighting to protect this investigation, but also making the point that this is a national security issue.
This is about another country trying to influence our election and hack into campaigns and do things that were unbelievable in any other election that we have seen in American history.
Well, this indictment really got us closer to the truth, because, in this case, you have, in an indictment sworn under law, which says clearly that someone in that campaign, a senior official, asked Roger Stone to go over there and start communicating on the release of these e-mails.
It showed what they were doing to Hillary Clinton, what -- they were trying to undermine her by attacking her health and making things up about her memory and other things.
This is exactly what we saw unfold before our eyes in the election. It influenced the American people. And, again, our main goal in the Senate right now is and should be to allow that investigation to complete its course, so the American people can have the whole story.
And that`s why it`s so important that that report be released, so we really know what happened. It`s the only way to prevent it from happening again.
MATTHEWS: Senator, I think that nails it.
Thank you very much for joining us tonight on this big, historic night.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you. Thanks, Chris.
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