MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Interview

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HAYES:  That is a funny bit that he likes to do.  Donald Trump wants to destroy the American health care system as it currently exists under ObamaCare with no plan at all as you just heard for what to do afterwards.  And considering the last time the Republican Party tried to get rid of ObamaCare it cost them control of the House and several state capitals, many Republicans are pretty spooked by the President`s latest anti- ObamaCare push.
 
One Republican senator who didn`t want to use their name told Politico, "We need a plan and right now we don`t have one.  I`m not going to just throw this to the whims of our creativity."  For years now literally, the President has been promising some beautiful perfect health care plan that is of course yet to materialize which is not unlike his beautiful infrastructure plan.
 
Well, today, Democratic Senator and Presidential Candidate Amy Klobuchar rolled out an actual infrastructure plan to spend $1 trillion in federal funds for state and local governments to upgrade not only crumbling roads, highways, and bridges, but also schools, airports, water systems, internet access, public transit, and energy systems.
 
And Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota and 2020 Presidential candidate joins me now.  Senator --
 
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:  Hey, Chris!
 
HAYES:  It`s good to see you.  So am I not understand this which is the first big policy rollout you`ve had, this would be your first big domestic priority where you elected president, you had a Congress you could work with, this is the first thing you`d come out with?
 
KLOBUCHAR:  This is the first big bill that I had worked with to get through the Congress.  I think there`s other things that that I`d like to do immediately like get us back into that climate change agreement.  You can do that with the stroke of a pen or put forward some of these clean power rules.  But this would be a big project that you clearly would have to work with Republicans in the Senate.  Hopefully we will be in control of the Senate.  But you`d want to work with people to get this done.
 
So what I did here is something the president seemingly has been unable to do even though he said this was one of his top priorities.  And that is lay out a plan for infrastructure, everything from roads and bridges, of course motivated by what happened in my state a mile from my house when that bridge fell down in the middle of a summer day killing 13 people.
 
Look at rail systems and water system, looks at the flooding that we`re seeing right now in Iowa and a lot of this means infrastructure, it means sewer systems, some of the stuff that`s not so glamorous.  Crumbling public schools like we saw in Baltimore this last winter where the heat wasn`t even working.  So these are things we have to do as a nation.  And I also showed how I was going to pay for it.
 
And so far this president`s plan has been a mirage, Chris.  He said he wants to do it and then he maybe puts a fifth of the money out there and doesn`t really show how he`s going to pay for it and hasn`t been able to get it done.
 
HAYES:  One of the things that I think the first item as I was going through his roads and bridges and things like that.  You talk about congestion and the like.  You also talked about the need to build green infrastructure.  Do you see those as intention in any way right?  Building out the infrastructure for fossil fuel driven cars and the way those drive emissions with expanding the transportation infrastructure under the kind of old combustion engine automobile?
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Not really because I think you`re going to have an electric grid in the future as we`re going to see more and more transition.  You`re still going to need roads but you are going to have to adjust some of the signage and things like that and how those roads work.  But certainly, part of this is transit and making sure we have good rail and other things that are very consistent with those goals. 
 
And one of the ways you pay for this which you didn`t ask but I just can`t help but want to put out there because there are ways to pay for this, and that is the portion of the Republican tax plan that was so regressive where the corporate tax went all the way down to 21 percent.  Every point was $100 billion.
 
So literally you could still be at 25 percent and have $400 billion for infrastructure.  The way they did that overseas money which was an avenue -
* just unbelievable because no one could really figure it out.  Remember how that thing came up so quickly?
 
HAYES:  Yes.
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Well, they did it as an average of all the country`s taxes instead of taking each country`s taxes.  You could say $150 billion on that
* on that overseas money.  And so you combine it plus you do some government bonds and an infrastructure financing authority which will attract some private money, and that`s about a third of this.  And you literally can get to the trillion dollars.  Something that Democrats and Republicans and independents have been asking for a long time.
 
HAYES:  Yes.  There`s an argument to be made that the depths of the corporate tax cuts give Democrats a kind of pay for a lot of stuff should they take office because they cut so deeply.  You voted present this week along with your colleagues except for four I think on the Green New Deal.  People said it was a sort of gimmick by McConnell.  You weren`t going to play his game.  But do you support it?  What is your feeling about it?
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Yes.  I`m a co-sponsor and I think it is so important to move forward and just stop talking about this problem and start doing something about it.  You know, if we could put a man on the moon, we can meet some of these goals.  We may not reach every single goal.  I think it is important though not to squelch the energy behind the Green New Deal.
 
And I was glad that we handled it the way we did because instead of actually coming up with some new plans and how we`re going to do the everything from gas mileage standards that I`d like to bring back, like that squelch to the clean power rules, Mitch McConnell is just playing games.  He wanted to see if he could you know, create a divide among Democrats in the U.S. Senate.  And he pretty much lost that bid.
 
Because instead, we turned it on them and said OK, just like we`re doing on health care like you started out.  What`s your plan?  You`ve got a president that`s decided he wants to kick everyone off for pre-existing conditions, you have a president that`s going backwards on climate change while fires are raging and floods are coming down the Midwest all the way south.  This is going on right now and instead of playing politics, maybe you should come up with a plan.  And if you can`t, the voters already spoke in 2018 and they`re going to speak again in 2020.
 
HAYES:  I want to ask you before I let you go about an exchange you have with Rand Paul today on the floor of the Senate.  You --
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Oh, that`s always fun.
 
HAYES:  You asked for unanimous consent for a resolution similar to the one that passed in the House 420-0 to make the full Mueller report public.  He objected a unanimous consent, said he wants all of the -- I guess material that began the investigation or Obama to be made public.  You objected to that.  How did you -- how did you read his objection, is it a good-faith one or a bad faith one?
 
KLOBUCHAR:  I don`t think that was good faith.  And I kept going back to him with you know what, 420-0 in the House of Representatives.  They voted that this report should be public.  Nearly 90 percent of the public wants to see it.  Why?  I think at its core we need to see this for national security.
 
It`s hundreds of pages.  We`re going to find out much more about what the Russians did, and we`ve got bills on the table right now to secure our election equipment.  My bipartisan bill to have backup paper ballots, this is going to give me what I need to make the case.  And so I think the public needs to see it.  I made a very simple argument.  And I was actually quite surprised that they objected given the vote that we saw in the House.
 
HAYES:  Yes.  I find the objection a little weird too.  Senator Amy Klobuchar, thanks so much for coming by.  Come back again.
 
KLOBUCHAR:  Thank you.  It was great to be on, Christ.

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