CNN "State Of The Union With Jake Tapper" - Transcript "Interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar"

Interview

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Joining me now, 2020 presidential candidate and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Senators, thanks for joining us.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: I want to ask you.

Your fellow Democratic Senator and 2020 opponent Elizabeth Warren said on Friday that she had seen enough evidence to convict President Trump at an impeachment trial in the Senate.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: You have seen enough evidence to convict, yourself?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.

QUESTION: So you would vote right now to remove the president?

WARREN: Look, I think the evidence is clear.

When Donald Trump released the transcript in which he solicited a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 elections, he broke the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Senator, would you vote to convict President Trump right now?

KLOBUCHAR: Jake, I have been very clear, I think this is impeachable, that the case should be heard by the House, and it should come over to the Senate.

Now, I don't know what counts they're going to have or how they are going to do this, but my focus is on the fact that you have got a president that is acting like a global gangster. He is basically going to one leader after another trying to get dirt on his political opponent.

I consider that a violation of our laws. I consider it a violation of the election laws. You have got the smoking gun document, but now you're getting even reports of another whistle-blower that is going to back up what the first whistle-blower said.

[09:20:25]

So, I am really, really focused on getting the evidence out for the American people and really calling on our Republican colleagues to take this on in the serious matter, to put the country in front of their own partisanship, as we get this very serious case that I believe will come over from the House.

TAPPER: That's right.

And just to reiterate for those just tuning in, the whistle-blower attorney Mark Zaid, who represents the first whistle-blower, has confirmed that he's now representing a second whistle-blower, somebody who has spoken to the intelligence community inspector general and has firsthand accounts that back up the first whistle-blower.

But let me ask you.

Your answer there sounded like you were saying the impeachment process should go forward, this is impeachable, but you didn't say that you would be ready to convict right now.

I understand that you're a believer in the process. Do you think it's irresponsible for senators who will be essentially jurors to say right now that they would vote to convict? Is that irresponsible?

KLOBUCHAR: I think people will say different things.

I personally, as a former prosecutor, like to look at all the evidence, because you might convict on a number of counts, and not another one.

That's not really the point here, Jake. The point is that we have some of our Republican colleagues that are basically treating this as a joke, with very few exceptions. And they are the ones that's going to matter, because we're going to need something like 20 Republican votes to get up to 67.

You look at the fact that we have had a few glimmers of people trying to look at this differently, Senator Grassley defending the whistle- blower after President Trump attacked the whistle-blower as a spy, basically implying that he should be executed.

You had Senator Romney just this last weekend being willing to come out and say what was very, very wrong about making these kinds of threats when you're in the middle trade negotiations with China, using the leverage that should be used to help our farmers and our workers, and instead trying to use it to get dirt on an opponent or the fledgling democracy of Ukraine.

So I'm waiting for more of them to basically -- like that old kid's story, the emperor has no clothes. You have got a president that's cloaking himself in the pageantry of this office, while literally violating the law on a daily basis.

We need more Republicans to point out this emperor has no clothes.

TAPPER: The...

KLOBUCHAR: And, pretty soon, one by one by one, I think the truth will come out.

TAPPER: The White House has asserted that it does not need to comply with congressional subpoenas for documents because the House of Representatives has not held a formal vote to open an impeachment inquiry.

Regardless of that legal position, you argue there's a process to follow here. Why shouldn't the process include a vote on the House floor to open a formal impeachment inquiry?

KLOBUCHAR: I don't think that's necessary, I think, because we know, by the House rules, that the speaker can do that herself.

To me, again, these are a bunch of the nuances of this, but what really matters to me is that people come forward and testify. You already have those texts which are very damning, where you have high- level diplomats trying to deal with the fact about the White House pushing for this investigation while foreign aid, security is on the line.

I have been to Ukraine. I was there with Senator McCain and Senator Graham and saw for myself how much they need our country by their side as they deal with a foreign entity, as in Russia, that shot planes down over their country, that's annexed Crimea in their own country.

They need us. And President Trump knows that.

So, I think what really matters is, OK, we have got these courageous whistle-blowers coming forward. Now we have got to see the courage from some of the people that used to work in that White House that were directly in the room with him, that heard when he talked about these things. Those people have to come forward.

And then, of course, we need to see the same level of courage that we see from these line CIA agencies, as has been reported. We need to see that from the Congress, because, to me, this is just like Watergate.

You had a president that was paranoid. An election was coming up. He wanted to get dirt on his political opponent. And he sent out a group to break into a file cabinet in the DNC headquarters.

Instead, this guy, he's decided to use his clout with world leaders and try to do it on a global basis. And then, when they get caught, what do they do? They try to hide it on a super secret server and have the information there.

They didn't have those back then in Watergate, but it is the same kind of thing.

TAPPER: Let me ask...

KLOBUCHAR: That's what we're dealing with here. And people need to think of it that way.

TAPPER: Let me ask you.

Vice President Biden defended himself when he was asked about Hunter Biden's involvement with a Ukrainian company and whether it was a conflict interests.

[09:25:00]

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: It's not a conflict of interests.

There's been no indication of any conflict of interests from Ukraine or anywhere else, period. I'm not going to -- I'm not going to respond to that.

Let's focus on the problem. Focus on this man, what he's doing, that no president has ever done, no president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: And to be clear, as I said earlier in the show, the Ukrainian prosecutor general says he has no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden.

But I want to ask you. Senator Harris and Congressman O'Rourke have both suggested that they would not be comfortable with the child of their vice president sitting on the board of a foreign company. Would you?

KLOBUCHAR: No, I wouldn't.

And I can promise you right now, my own daughter, who's only 24, does not sit on the board of a foreign company.

But that is not the issue. The issue here is what the president is doing, because we have the Ukrainian prosecutors saying that there's no evidence. There has -- as you have said on your show, multiple people looking at this, that there's no evidence that the vice president did something wrong here.

And so what really matters is that the president was repeatedly trying to get dirt on a political opponent. That is the issue here. And we have seen this. We have seen this president. He does not know the line, from the moment he stood in front of that wall of stars of the deceased CIA agents, stood there on that sacred wall, and gave a partisan speech.

He believed Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence directors, Jake.

TAPPER: Mm-hmm.

KLOBUCHAR: Time and time again, this guy goes with the dictators, goes with Kim Jong-un, over the interests of America.

And I think we need a president that's going to put the interest of the people of this country, those workers, the farmers in Iowa, the people I'm here with right now in New Hampshire, the veterans I'm going to be meeting with in an hour, to put their interest in front of his own or her own political and business and partisan interests.

This guy hasn't done that. That is why the House is looking into this, because it is a security interest for our country, a violation of the law. It is very straightforward.

And to not do it would be to shirk our constitutional duties. It was James Madison that said at the Constitutional Convention that the reason that these provisions for impeachment should have been and were included in the Constitution was because they feared that a president could betray the trust of the American people to a foreign power.

Those were the words of one of our founders. And that's what's happening here.

TAPPER: All right, Senator Klobuchar, thanks so much.

You should learn some Daniel Webster for the New Hampshire crowd you're about to talk to. But I appreciate your references.

KLOBUCHAR: OK, I will beef up on that on the way to the -- on the way to the American Legion.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: All right.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you very much, Jake.

TAPPER: Thanks so much. Appreciate it, Senator Klobuchar.

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