MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: "Interview with Senator Amy Klobuchar."

Interview

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And we`re joined by a senator who is a member of the Joint Economic Committee, Senator Amy Klobuchar is also a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which has seen the devastating effect of the Trump tariffs on American farmers, and Senator Klobuchar is a candidate for president of the United States who hopes to be on the Democratic stage preparing to debate Donald Trump. And if you are the Democratic nominee, it seems to me the tariffs will surely come up.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think we should be talking about it now and I have --

O`DONNELL: Here`s your chance.

KLOBUCHAR: Here`s my moment.

O`DONNELL: Everything you`ve wanted to say that you haven`t been able to get into the debates.

KLOBUCHAR: Quietly, even brought them in my Labor Day speech because I think you know that we need to have trade enforcement, and I worked on this very hard during president Obama`s administration. When we come to iron ore and re-opening our iron ore mines in Minnesota because of the steel dumping from China. We got it done because we went -- focused on that problem. Now, what we see Donald Trump doing, he`s using basically a meat cleaver. He is going wholesale to the point where you`re starting to see the soybeans now for years mounting up in the bins. You see pork now at nine-year low for exports. You see what Austan was talking about there in terms of what effect it`s going to have on consumers, and starting this week now, we`re going to start seeing tariffs on ordinary consumer goods like clothing and shoes and things like that. So, it`s going to affect Americans and it`s going to start hurting our manufacturing, and I don`t think it`s a surprise that we`re at $891 billion trade deficit, the worst that we`ve been at since he`s been at the helm. And you look at the chaos. Instead of going to the negotiating table with our allies, figuring out our focus and getting this done with a very tough negotiating partner, what does he do? He goes -- just look at the last month, August 1st he says that he`s going to put out $300 billion in tariffs. August 12th, they dial it back. The next -- August 20th, they say they`re going to lower taxes. The next day they change it. The world is watching. And what they`re seeing is chaos. And there`s an old saying with trade negotiations, keep your promises and keep your threats, and he is doing neither. So I think it is an economic issue. He inherited an economy because of our great workers and businesses and now he`s blowing it up.

O`DONNELL: And this is entirely Donald Trump`s personal doing. The tariffs are his idea. It`s maybe the only idea he`s had as president. And then the execution of it he leaves to the USTR and others involved in it. But this is one of those things where he can`t duck it. He`s not -- this is not any other -- this is not something that the Senate voted on or that the Republican Congress helped him do, it`s entirely his own.

KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. And when you look at what he came into, we have big challenges, we know what -- China is one of them. They`ve been vesting in places like Africa and around the world. And our goal should be to take them on as Austan was pointing out on the currency manipulation, which we`re doing some of that. The subsidies they`re doing with the industry, the stealing of intellectual property. And the best way you do that is with your allies. If they`re going to be tariffs, they should be focused tariffs. That`s why in my first 100 days, I would review all these tariffs and figure out a negotiation that is going to work for our farmers, work for manufacturing and stop something that to me just seems like a vanity crusade that he`s on.

O`DONNELL: You represent a big agricultural state. Do you think your ability to talk about this particular issue is going to be important in the general election?

KLOBUCHAR: It is. I don`t know that every candidate has spent time sitting in farmhouses, and not just in the campaign year but for years, and seeing that change where a farmer just bursts out in tears without the media there and the door closed saying, you know what, I might be getting these subsidies right now, but that`s not what I want. This is a farm that`s been passed on to me from generations and I want to pass it on to my kids and I don`t know how I`m going to keep farming.

O`DONNELL: Have you found any Minnesota farmers who are getting a subsidy that makes them whole, that is equal to what they`d be getting in the marketplace?

KLOBUCHAR: It`s certainly not equal to what they need to keep contracts. The problem is this goes on and on and on, these contracts are going to farmers in other countries and it`s going to be very hard for them to take it back, and that`s why we need a policy, and I think, you know, we know we didn`t get some of these votes, right, in 2016. I did in 2018. But we need to gain the trust of these farmers and bring them back as well as rural America and the people that are being hurt by this trade war.

O`DONNELL: Can you stay with us? Because I want to get your reaction to an interview that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave today, in which among other things, he complains a lot about being called Moscow Mitch, after a commercial break?

KLOBUCHAR: OK.

O`DONNELL: We`ll be right back with Senator Klobuchar.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: After Labor Day weekend, which saw another mass murder in Texas that killed 7 and wounded 25 with an assault rifle, when Mitch McConnell was asked today about gun safety legislation, he created a new operating principle for the United States senate. This is the latest of many new McConnell rules that he has introduced as majority leader that stifle democracy.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): We`re in a discussion about what to do on the gun issue in the wake of these horrendous shootings. I said several weeks ago that if the president took a position on a bill, so that we knew we would actually be making a law and not just having serial votes, I`d be happy to put it on the floor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: If the Senate could only debate bills that are guaranteed to pass and become a law, be signed by the president, then here`s a small sample of things that would never have become the law of the land -- Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and many, many more. Back with us is presidential candidate and senator, Amy Klobuchar. So how about the new McConnell rule, we have to be guaranteed that this will become a law?

KLOBUCHAR: Literally, he is giving up the power of the Senate. Not only as a counterbalance, but as you know, the Senate has sometimes passed bills including some farm bills where then the president vetoes and we override the veto. So you have that situation. And on a topic like this where the country is crying out for action, where a recent poll showed the majority of Trump voters want to see universal background checks, which is one of the three bills sitting on Mitch McConnell`s desk, where we saw the ordinary courage of these people who just rose to the occasion, saved their babies, cops showing up in one minute in Dayton, you think what`s happened in the country in just the last few weeks. And for him to say, well, I don`t know what the president wants to do. We should put those bills up for a vote. We should pass them. And because I sat across the table from Donald Trump after Parkland and he nine times said -- I had some hash marks on a piece of paper. That he wanted to pass universal background checks. Let him veto it then. He said he wants to do it.

O`DONNELL: "The Washington Post" in an editorial that will appear tomorrow has a list of names of mass murder victims and it`s addressed specifically to Mitch McConnell. There we see it on the screen: Do something, Mr. McConnell. The Senate must act on guns. So, "The Washington Post" is focusing the pressure on Mitch McConnell.

KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. He puts those bills up. I just challenge my Republican colleagues to vote them down. They have already passed the House with some Republican support. So, there is absolutely no reason he can`t put them up and then put them on Donald Trump`s desk. That`s leadership.

O`DONNELL: In that same interview today, let listen to what he said about Moscow Mitch.

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MCCONNELL: It`s an effort to smear me. You know, I can laugh about things like the Grim Reaper, but calling me Moscow Mitch is over the top. It`s modern day McCarthyism.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: So he`d rather be called the grim reaper?

KLOBUCHAR: I don`t know. I think the problem here is actually my legislation, my bill with Senator Lankford that Mitch McConnell stopped, we know that, as did P Trump`s White House, stopped it from advancing for backup paper ballots. That`s what caused I think Joe Scarborough and others do --

O`DONNELL: That`s what made Joe Scarborough call him Moscow Mitch, right?

KLOBUCHAR: That`s exactly what happened. It was that bill. And also bills for social media and things we can do to protect our democracy.

O`DONNELL: A Republican senator. You had a Republican co-sponsor on this.

KLOBUCHAR: We did. Now we have several versions of that bill that would simply say to those states, there are still 11 states that don`t have full backup paper ballots, if you`re going to get federal funding, you`ve got to do this. It pushes them to do it and also requires -- allows for audits --

O`DONNELL: The distinction --

KLOBUCHAR: It`s unbelievable to me.

O`DONNELL: What he doesn`t seem to understand about McCarthyism is McCarthyism -- Joe McCarthy was accusing a lot of people falsely of doing stuff they didn`t do. Joe Scarborough was accusing him as Moscow Mitch, of doing what he said he was doing publicly. There`s a very big difference there.

KLOBUCHAR: It was very public. He does not want to see these changes. And we really look at this -- this is about our democracy. It`s a foreign power trying to invade our democracy. I don`t care if you are a conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat. It is not American to allow that to continue. You should do everything to protect the sanctity of our elections and he knows that. He just doesn`t want to do it.

O`DONNELL: I want to ask you about something we were discussing just before the show when you told me you were on the Rare Disease Caucus.

KLOBUCHAR: I`m actually the co-chair. Yes.

O`DONNELL: Which I didn`t even know existed in the Senate. Isabel Bueso, who Rachel has been doing a great coverage on. We`ve been talking about her on this show, really trying to save her life, trying to get her story told, "New York Times" broke the story, trying to get it to the attention someone in the Trump administration who can see this for what it is. Apparently that has happened. The Trump administration appears to be in the process of reversing their death sentence to Isabel and all of the other patients in this country who have been getting automatic two-year renewals of their right to stay here for lifesaving medical treatment.

KLOBUCHAR: What this is about, it`s about these kids, of course, and saving their lives, but it`s more than that. It`s about saving the lives of Americans as well, because with rare diseases, especially with children, you`ll have such small number of kids that have rare diseases, and to do the necessary tests for drugs or for surgeries or for trials, you have to have the children to do those trials, and sometimes they live in countries where you`re not going to be able to have a supervised medical trial in those places. Minnesota`s the home of the Mayo Clinic, so I`ve been involved in a lot of these cases, and you just can`t do this. This is not America to send a sick kid off to die. We know that, but we also should think about what this means for us as really a medical Mecca. Our country has been a lead. We`ve relied -- the whole world has relied on vaccines that have been developed here and we`ve relied on vaccines that have been developed in other countries, so this is something that is a world problem that we cannot be as successful of saving kids` lives that are born in America and grow up here unless we also are saving the lives of kids in other countries.

O`DONNELL: Now, you had this struggle in your own family with your own daughter, a rare disease --

KLOBUCHAR: Yes.

O`DONNELL: And so it seems like someone in the Trump administration, whoever did this, they didn`t have any public comment on it, they just made this decision.

KLOBUCHAR: Yes.

O`DONNELL: They sent out these letters to people, possibly not even realizing that these were death sentences.

KLOBUCHAR: I have no idea. My daughter was very sick when she was born. She couldn`t swallow. We never actually quite figured out. She got better after being fed in tubes for two years.

O`DONNELL: But you searched the country for solutions.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: When you have gone to do (ph) this, the thought that as a president you would just sign this off and saying these kids can leave, when you have seen as I have in those intensive cares these parents who are just holding on to keep their babies alive, this is not what you do as a moral leader. And so, one of the things that I am -- my focus in running for president is we need to have a president that you can watch on TV and not turn the volume on. We need to have a president that makes decisions based on what is right for our country and the people of this country and for the morality of this country that we`ve always been so proud of. We need to be -- have a president we can be proud of. And at its very core, I think that`s a lot of what this campaign in 2020 is going to be about.

O`DONNELL: Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you very much for joining us.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you. I appreciate it.

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