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

Interview

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MADDOW:  How about if I asked you a question?  Would that be a question?  I don`t know, I`d have to know the specifics of whether or not you asked me a question if that would be a question. 
 
Fresh off her questioning of President Trump`s new attorney general nominee, William Barr, today, we are joined now live by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. 
 
Senator Klobuchar, it`s great to see you.  Thank you for your time.
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Thanks, Rachel.  I wish you could have been on there in the panel.  That would have been good. 
 
MADDOW:  Well -- I`d be -- I`d at least offer a good snark. 
 
Were you satisfied with the answers he gave you?  I was reading into your body language and tone and I felt like you were underwhelmed but I realize I shouldn`t assume that. 
 
KLOBUCHAR:  I was not satisfied.  First of all, the major thing that happened there was when a number of us, I asked him, Senator Harris asked whether or not he would abide by the decision of career ethics attorneys in the Department of Justice when they make a decision about whether or not the attorney general should recuse himself or herself from a case, in this case, of course, this investigation because of his earlier 19-page memo that he wrote. 
 
He said today that he would not do that.  That he might refer to them but he would not abide by that, that he would make his own decision.  And it was so ironic because he actually commended Attorney General Sessions for agreeing to follow those ethics attorneys` recommendations and recuse himself.  So that was troubling. 
 
MADDOW:  There was one element of that and I don`t mean to get too weedy and specific on this, but one of the things I`ve been wondering, sort of anticipating that he might not commit, that he would follow the ethics advised that he was told to recuse.  I was wondering if he was going to be asked whether he would at least commit to making that advice public.  So, commit to asking for an ethics opinion about whether you should recuse, and he did commit to that today.  Commit to their advice?  He said no.
 
But would he commit to make the ethics advice public?  So if he decides not to take advice, we at least know what he`s objecting to, we can at least query him about that?  I felt like today, that was -- that was very fuzzy.  I`m not sure he committed one way or the other on that. 
 
KLOBUCHAR:  I agree.  And I`m going to follow up with some more written questions on that.  I also asked him if he agreed with the fact that Whitaker wouldn`t recuse himself, right?  And that was -- that guy is like a walking, talking conflict with his past work and what he`s done.  And he didn`t really answer that, either.  He said he hadn`t looked at it.
 
And the other major part of this in addition to the ethics news that we had today was the report.  And I do appreciate that he said he wants to allow the investigation to run its course and that he says he`s going to try to make the report public.  But there was a lot of equivocating in my private meeting with him and today in terms of, well, I`ll have to look at the rules and regulations in terms of -- so I`m concerned about, I loved how you showed earlier in the show the redacted Manafort filing with the multiple pages of just redaction with nothing on them. 
 
That is not what we want to see when this report gets filed, when the American public should have a right to see exactly what happened when a foreign country tried to interfere in our election.  And after 33 indictments, I think we know how serious this is. 
 
MADDOW:  My impression watching carefully that interaction between you and him, and between you, him, and a few other senators on that topic, was that he seemed to be saying that if there is a report written by Robert Mueller, that will be a report to him and then he as attorney general, he will then issue a report to Congress that will, what summarize what Mueller told him?  Oh, that will be his own takeaways from Mueller`s report?
 
That was a new idea to me.  I felt like he was framing that in a way that I`ve never heard before. 
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Well, the Justice Robert rules do say that Mueller is to submit the report to the attorney general, to the Department of Justice, whoever is overseeing it and then they make that decision.  But what we wanted to hear was this full-throated, I know how important this, I`m going to put that report out there -- you know, barring some kind of legal problem that you don`t want to reveal some evidence or something. 
 
And we didn`t hear it like that.  It was much more vague, as you said, about what he might put out there.  So, that`s the most concerning thing as we see more and more indictments tumbling our way, more things leaking out.  We want to know exactly what happened. 
 
The other thing I`d add I was troubled by, some of the answers on immigration, I`d say his answers on criminal justice reform given his past views when he was attorney general, that was a good discussion he had with Senator Booker.  But then I`d asked a question which I think you would be interested in, as a daughter of a reporter, I asked him, well, I asked Senator Sessions this, would you put reporters in jail for doing their jobs?  That`s all.  That was it.  Simple. 
 
And there was the longest pause I could remember in a long time and then he kind of said, well, I`d have to -- well, there might be some cases.  So, that was also concerning because of the things the president has been saying about journalists, as you know, and going after media organizations and individual reporters. 
 
MADDOW:  Yes, the long pause that you elicited from him there drained the color out of every face in the newsroom in my office when that happened today.  That was itself an alarming moment.
 
Senator Amy Klobuchar, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you so much for being here. 
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Thank you, Rachel.
 
MADDOW:  When you are ready to talk about whether or not you are, in fact, going to declare you`re forming an exploratory committee to run president, you have to do it here, OK? 
 
KLOBUCHAR:  I will remember that.  Thank you. 
 
MADDOW:  Diplomatic.  Thank you.  I`ll be right back.
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Excellent.

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