Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Interview

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Senator, welcome back.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, D-MINN., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: thanks, Chris, it's great to be on.

WALLACE: Eight states now, eight states, have passed tight new restrictions on abortion, that pro-life groups have been pushing and as they say, dramatically restrict rights of abortion. Alabama would ban abortions at any point except on matters of the extreme health of the woman.

My question is, if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, when you become president, what would you do?

KLOBUCHAR: If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, I would make sure that we are codifying Roe v. Wade into law.

But I think it's really important for the Fox News viewers to understand exactly what's happening here. These aren't nuances anymore. This is a case where the laws that they have passed in these states would actually make it so that no one could get an abortion, and at the same time, while we would reduce the number of abortions because of making contraception more available all over the country through Planned Parenthood and other ways, they've also moved to defund Planned Parenthood.

So, this is dangerous. It is a place that we have never seen. I think people have always warned that this could happen and it's actually happened. And when I talk to people, whether they are pro-choice or they are personally opposed to abortion, a lot of them, Chris, don't think we should go this direction. Seventy-three percent of Americans don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade.

You have a situation here where they would actually put doctors in prison 99 years, that's what the Alabama law says. This is a law that they passed that would mean that if someone was raped, if a college student was raped, she wouldn't have a choice in the pregnancy from a rape.

I don't think the majority of Americans are where the Republicans are on this issue right now.

WALLACE: But, Senator, pro-life advocates are pushing back. There's a group called Restoration PAC, and they are no running an ad on Facebook that we are showing right now showing what it calls the "Party of Death". Six Democratic senators running for president, including you, who have opposed restrictions in the later stages of pregnancy.

You talk about the extreme, as you call it on one side -- let me make the case, and you can answer it on the other side, because folks say that one of the concerns is that a number of Democratic senators are not willing to see restrictions on late-term abortions, abortions after 24 weeks as we enter the third trimester. Now, that's only 1 percent of all abortions in the country, but even 1 percent is 6,000 abortions after 24 weeks when a fetus might well be viable.

Are you OK with that?

KLOBUCHAR: I'm OK with the law, Chris, and what the law says is that in that third trimester, it is allowed to protect the health and the life of the mother.

But that's not what the president said, Chris. The president misled the American public. What he said at a rally was basically a doctor would be holding a baby and kill that baby.

That's illegal under the law. That is already a crime. I know this. I'm a former prosecutor.

WALLACE: Forgive me, Senator --

KLOBUCHAR: No, I think --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Are you OK -- let me ask you, I understand that the argument against infanticide, and that's an overstatement. What I'm asking you is, are you OK with abortions after 24 weeks?

KLOBUCHAR: To protect the life and the health of the mother. That is exactly what the Supreme Court ruling says, and I am OK with that. But I just think it's really important, Chris, for your Fox viewers to know, because there's so much misinformation out there that what these laws do is extreme.

There are a number of Republicans who said they are opposed to them. They are extreme. Then you have the president misleading the public and telling them that this is about basically killing a baby after a baby is born. That is not what this is about, that is a crime.

So, I think what people have to understand here is that we are at a point where a number -- it is not just Alabama. This has happened in Ohio. This has happened in Missouri. This happened in Georgia.

WALLACE: Right.

KLOBUCHAR: There's a law that's being passed in Michigan that the Democratic governor is going to veto. This is happening across the country and people need to know what's really going on here. This is a violation of civil rights.

WALLACE: Attorney General Barr sat down with our Bill Hammer earlier this week and he said he could understand why President Trump has called the Russia probe a witch hunt, a hoax, because he says President Trump felt that he was falsely accused and the Mueller report seemed to back them up. And then he also said that he intends to drill down on how the FBI and the intel agencies handled the probe.

Here is the attorney general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I thought when I came in from outside that all the questions that I had, many other people had, that it would be readily answered once I got in. But I haven't found that to be the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Aren't there legitimate reasons to investigate the investigators, Senator ?

KLOBUCHAR: I don't think there are. And this really bothers me, because we have in front of us two things. One of them is to get to the truth of what happened here and we are simply trying to get Director Mueller in front of us so we can find out.

I remind you, this investigation was started under a Republican attorney general, with a former Republican appointed U.S. attorney, Rod Rosenstein, with a former Republican appointed FBI director. That's where we were.

They started investigation because of legitimate news that there were people from the Trump campaign talking to others about Russia and exchanging information. We know that.

OK. The second thing though, that is most disturbing to me, is we have something right in front of us. The current FBI director and the current director of intelligence have told us that Russia is getting bolder. That what we've just seen was a dress rehearsal.

And yet, any attempt that I've made with the Secure Elections Act, which is a bill that I have with conservative Senator Lankford, that basically would say let's get some back up paper ballots, let's get some audits in place, so we cannot allow a foreign power to invade our election again. They didn't do it with tanks or missiles; they did it with a cyber attack. They have stopped them in their tracks. The White House made calls to stop that bill despite strong Republican support for the bill.

So that is what's right in front of us, and Barr is off talking about whatever he wants to talk about politically. But what he should be doing is to protect the integrity of our elections and our democracy.

WALLACE: As you know, New Hampshire, where we both are, although in different parts of the state, is among the five states with the highest rate of opioid-related deaths in the country, twice the national average. You have released a hundred-billion-dollar, 10-year plan to deal with mental health and substance abuse. You know, they all sound roughly the same. Prevention, treatment, recovery.

So I guess I want to ask you, just focus on one thing, one thing that you think that makes her plan dramatically different from all the other Democratic plans to deal with this problem.

KLOBUCHAR: This is an issue that no presidential candidate has taken on really in history, and I would emphasize here the mental health aspect of it. One in five Americans have problems with mental health. For me, the mental health addiction issue comes from my heart. My dad struggled with alcoholism his whole life, had two DWIs and then a third right before I got married.

And at that point in the '90s, he was facing either jail or treatment. He chose treatment and in his words, he was pursued by grace.

And I think every American has that right to be pursued by grace, and what I've done here is layout a thorough plan so we have beds for people who have extreme problems with mental illness, so that we have counselors for people to talk to. We've had a 30 percent increase in suicides, including farmers, including veterans, including students in this country in 15 years.

And, Chris, the other thing that's unique about my plan is I show how I'm going to pay for it. I figure if you're running for president, you better be addressing real problems with real solutions and show how you're going to pay for it. I would pay for it by taking on the pharma companies that got a bunch of people addicted to begin with, and you can do it simply with a fee -- a per milligram fee on the opioids that are being sold and then there's going to be a major master settlement with those companies that profited off of people's addictions, that got people hooked, and that's where you get the hundred billion dollars.

WALLACE: I've got about three minutes left, I want to get to two more subjects with you. One of them is immigration.

KLOBUCHAR: OK.

WALLACE: The president proposed a new plan this week that emphasizes merit, skills, education, over family ties. Here's how the president described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: We discriminate against genius. We discriminate against brilliance. We won't anymore once we get this passed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Now, Canada and Australia have merit-based systems. Why shouldn't the U.S.?

KLOBUCHAR: You know, you can do both. You can have some people coming in and -- that get degrees here on merit, but I think you also have to have people that maybe don't have those degrees, and I'm talking here about what we need workers right now in our fields, in our factories, we have openings in our nursing homes. We don't have enough labor and some of our states for those kinds of jobs as well.

And so, what bothers me about the president's plan is the fact that he doesn't deal with the Dreamers. He doesn't deal with the millions of people who came here with no fault of their own. He doesn't deal with the 10 million people that are here now. Many of whom would like to see if they follow the law, learn English, they want to be on a path to citizenship.

And a lot of our Republican colleagues, people like --

WALLACE: Right.

KLOBUCHAR: -- Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, they joined with Democrats to take this on.

So I feel like the president has carved out one niche here instead of dealing with the overall comprehensive immigration issue. That -- as president, that's what I would do.

WALLACE: Senator, I want to talk a little 2020 politics in the time we have left and I want to put up the Real Clear Politics average of the latest polls. In Iowa, you're in eighth place with 3 percent support, and here in New Hampshire, you're also in eighth place with 1-1/2 percent support.

I understand that it's very early. We are still months away from people voting their in New Hampshire. I guess the question I have is, why do you think you have not gained as much traction so far in the campaign as other candidates, for instance, Mayor Pete, who's going to be here for the town hall this evening?

KLOBUCHAR: Oh, Chris, I think being in the top ten in a 25-person race when you're from the middle of a country in a state that's not so big, at some of my colleagues, I think that's pretty good, and I wouldn't count me out.

Everything I've done in my life, whether it's taking on 48-hour hospital stay for new moms and babies when people didn't think I could get that done, I got it done. Or when I was the first woman to run for D.A. in my state, of the biggest county, I got it done in the next time around, no one even ran against me. Then I go run for U.S. Senate, running against the congressman and win big time.

I am someone that takes on challenges and finds a way to get there. No one thought I could raise money when I was running for Senate. I finally just called everyone I know in my life and I raised an all-time Senate record --

WALLACE: Right.

KLOBUCHAR: -- $17,000 from ex-boyfriends. And as my husband has pointed out, it's not an expanding base.

I will find a way to win. No one thought a peanut farmer from Georgia was going to win. Jimmy Carter's pointed out to me that he had less support at this point than I do. No one thought a guy --

WALLACE: Senator --

KLOBUCHAR: -- named Barack Obama could become president.

This is -- you know politics, Chris.

WALLACE: Senator Klobuchar --

KLOBUCHAR: It is a long road.

WALLACE: It's forever.

Listen, I -- but it is a snapshot of where we are at this point. I'm certainly not counting out. That's why you're here for the "Fox News Sunday" sit-down.

Thank you. Thanks for taking time for the campaign trail.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.

WALLACE: Always good to talk with you.

KLOBUCHAR: Thanks.

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