MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: "Trump wrote letter to Turkish President."

Interview

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O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Amy Klobuchar, Democratic Senator from Minnesota. She`s a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and she is now a candidate for president of the United States. Senator thank you very much for joining us tonight.

KLOBUCHAR: Thanks Lawrence.

O`DONNELL: I want to give a chance to expand on that moment with Andrew Yang. I was a little surprised myself listening to that when I heard him say we`ve tampered with other elections and making that an equivalent of what Russia did in our election helping to elect Donald Trump. And were you kind of as thrown by that in that moment when you heard it?

KLOBUCHAR: I truly was Lawrence, and it was a very quick thing. And I felt like someone had to respond and that`s why I did it. Because you have a situation where no matter what follies America has involved been involved in the past, and obviously they`ve been mistakes made around the world, you still cannot make an argument that we have been shooting down planes of innocent people or funding people who would do that like Russia did recently over Ukraine. Or that we have been poisoning political opponents, like Vladimir Putin has done. Or the whole scale invasion of elections, not just in the United States, but also in our partners, the Baltic States. One of the last trips that John McCain took, I got to go with him, and we went to those states including Ukraine and stood there and heard their stories of what Russia had done to them. So I don`t think you mess around when it comes to this and that was the point. I respect Mr. Yang very much and actually thinks some of his points on automation and things we should talk about were interesting during the debate, but not on this. We have to stand as a team together and say we are standing up against this invasion of our democracy we`ve got to get back up paper ballots in every state and we need to hold Russia accountable for what they did, and not act like Donald Trump.

O`DONNELL: What is your reaction to something the President said today where he sees Syria has nothing but a lot of sand?

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Kurds have been fighting for hundreds of years. That all mess, it`s been going along for a long time. Syria may have some help with Russia and that`s fine. That`s a lot of sand. They`ve got a lot of sand over there. So there`s a lot of sand that they can play with--

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O`DONNELL: Your reaction to that starter.

KLOBUCHAR: I just find this just against everything that we stand for as a country. Look, at what Ben Rhodes just explained here. You`ve got nuclear weapons in Turkey, so we`ve got that going on with the country of Turkey. You have got ISIS and ISIS prisoners now getting out because of this President`s move and we had troops on the border - a very limited number and him making that decision rashly after the call from Erdogan. You now have Kurds that have been slaughtered. You have Russia filling the void, which by the way as Nancy Pelosi said today, all roads lead to Putin. Every decision that he makes seems to help Russia. And when I think about the Kurds that I met with when I have been to Turkey and people and I have been at the Jordan other places, some of those Kurdish fighters. When I think about what those refugees from Syria have gone through - I remember one of the women told me that what she had seen what happened to the people and her family - would make stones cry. It is a mess in Syria. But the last thing you want to do is remove those limited troops and allow Turkey to come in and slaughter our allies. That is the evil that Donald Trump did in the last week. And so I`m not surprised that you have hundreds of people over in the House, including all those Republicans, voting to condemn what he did. But what I am surprised at, is that they haven`t been standing up to him before this and that is in terms of its policy with Russia, how we responded to the invasion of the election. And I guess my response is time will tell, because we`re going to be facing an impeachment trial and those Republicans are going to have to decide, are they just voting for a resolution, are they going to allow this guy to continue in office when he`s looking for dirt and putting his interests in front of the interests of America?

O`DONNELL: Even a Trump loyalist like Senator Blackburn said today that what Donald Trump has done in Syria strengthens Russia, that`s the way she put it. The resolution that the House passed specifies in its language that this choice by the President benefits Russia and that resolution is going to come to the Senate. It`s obviously going to pass in the Senate overwhelmingly as it did in the House with Republican votes. And it is yet another document that that basically underlines Nancy Pelosi`s statement today about all the roads with Trump leading to Putin.

KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. And I think it`s very interesting that was in there, it`s helpful. But again, Lawrence, they are standing by him so far with very similar conduct with the President of Ukraine. Instead of talking to that new President about what we`re going to do about Russia invading their own country and Russia invading our elections, he chose instead to withhold their aides and try to get them to look for dirt on a political opponent. So this is what these Republicans are going to have to decide. And the point I was making on the debate stage is that we simply have to talk about this in that broader way. That this isn`t just one incident what he did this horrible action in Syria. It`s really what we`re seeing all over the world, when he got out of the Iranian agreement, when she got out of the nuclear agreement with Russia, when he got out of the International climate change agreement. And these things do not make America safer, they do not make America greater, they make Russia greater. And that was that point I was making the debate stage. And we`ve gotten a lot of surge of interest ever since then in my candidacy, including here in New Hampshire where I am today.

O`DONNELL: Senator Amy Klobuchar, our candidate for President of the United States, thank you very much us tonight.

KLOBUCHAR: Very good.

O`DONNELL: We appreciate it.

KLOBUCHAR: amyklobuchar.com, Lawrence, we always welcome support, it`s great to be on. Thank you.

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