CNN "Newsroom" - Interview with Amy Klobuchar

Interview

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With me now is Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Senator, thank you very much for being with us.

You have a very specific message to the protesters on the streets this afternoon and the ones thinking about what they might want to do this evening.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Yes, I was with faith leaders today and community leaders from the African-American community, and our Hispanic community, our American-Indian community, and basically everyone gathered to say, this protest right now, that's righteous. People are angry. They're feeling pain.

But tonight, when it comes to be 8:00, everyone has to go home. People have had this moment. They are -- we see them. We feel it. We know how horrible it was.

Anyone that watched that video that has an ounce of humanity and saw that murder and saw George Floyd's life literally evaporate before them on a video, feels that anger. But right now, what's happening and what happened last night in our town, and maybe you've heard this, over 80 percent of the arrests were from people from other places.

So, as the faith leaders said today, there are literally people hiding behind the righteous protesters trying to do harm to our African- American businesses, our Hispanic owned businesses, people's dreams that they've built up over a lifetime.

So, we are just simply asking, as a community, with our faith leaders, with our community leaders, saying, this is the right time to protest. This is the right way to do it. And we must see systemic change, including changes to policing and including a justice for George Floyd's family in terms of these charges. But then, we must heal. And tonight, we're asking people to go home before that curfew so that

it gives the police and the guard some time to make sure that they're focused on the people that are actually doing harm to our communities of color.

BERMAN: What if they don't go home, Senator? What then?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, we are just asking people to do that, and obviously, there's differences between people who are peaceful and people who are not, and everyone knows that, but last night, they saw a new techniques and tactics that we had not seen before.

And as I said, we know there are people from the outside coming into our state, and we're -- what did people in our state do today, John? They cleaned up. Their neighbors helped each other. They picked up the glass. They came together, and they are trying so hard.

They support the protest, the peaceful protest, but they do not support the looting. They do not support the arson.

BERMAN: I have heard the claims that 80 percent of the people were from out of state. Who are these people coming in? Where are they coming from?

KLOBUCHAR: You know, we don't know that. We really don't. And we're starting -- I think that information will come out, what groups they're associated with, what causes they're associated with, but as the faith leaders said today, as the African-American leaders said today, and including one of Philando Castile's relatives who spoke up and said, I will do anything to reduce violence and I will do anything to change police and reform, having lost Philando Castile who was a lovely person and worked in a school and was killed in another incident.

He stood up and he said, this is not what Philando stood for and certainly the legacy of George Floyd that we want to see is not destruction to our community of color. What we want to see is complete change in the criminal justice system, sentencing reform. We want to see much better policing techniques and training and hiring.

I've asked for a pattern and practice investigation from the Justice Department, and with my colleague, Senator Tina Smith, 25 senators joined us to say, let's make changes to this police department in such a big way, in a major scale way. But we should not be taking it out on those people that have built their hopes and dreams of our immigrant community, our African-American community.

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And we don't want to let them be used by people who want to do violence in their communities, which is exactly what we saw last night.

BERMAN: The attorney general a couple hours ago held a news conference and said that these protesters are people coming from out of state. He said they were Antifa-inspired leftists. Have you seen any evidence of that or what evidence is there of that?

KLOBUCHAR: I don't know what he is referring to. I know from our local law enforcement that there's people from many different groups and coming from many different reasons, and I think that there will be time to identify what exactly is going on here with outsiders coming in, but the only way we're going to do it is if the righteous and the peaceful and the people that want justice for George Floyd and want his legacy to be major changes to our criminal justice system, if they stay home tonight after peacefully protesting today.

BERMAN: What more do you think needs to be done tonight on the streets, not from the protesters or the people who might be going out there, but from law enforcement? And that will now include a full mobilization of the National Guard. How do they make their presence more successful in stopping the violence?

KLOBUCHAR: I think the governor has been forthright about this, and that is that no one had expected, in these numbers, to see outsiders come in of all different political stripes in his mind and from what he's seen. And so, I think that you're going to just need more people to protect our communities and especially our communities of color, and that's what we're going to see, and there have just been, of course, lootings and arsons and things that were unimaginable.

And as we were saying today, when all of us stood together, they literally looted and destroyed, in some neighborhoods, their only source of groceries or their only source of a pharmacy, and that's what we're so concerned about and want to clean up.

So, to me, the answer going forward is, one, justice in this case, and I call for charges, and as we know, there has been initial charging, but both the U.S. attorney's office and the state county attorney's office has said that this is the beginning and that there is an investigation going on for subsequent charges. Secondly, that we make reforms to this Minneapolis Police Department in a major way. And then third, criminal justice reforms on the federal level -- I pledged to do that as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we can do this both on the state and federal levels.

And then, finally, renewing and replacing our hope for our community, and that's going to mean economic justice. And, by the way, there's been injustices and disparities around for a really long time, and one answer is changes to the criminal justice system, but the other is investment in communities of color who have long suffered from the beginning from slavery and we have not made adequate adjustments.

I love a bill that Representative Clyburn has that would invest money in historically impoverished communities that have been impoverished for years. We've done it some in rural areas but I think we need to do it even broader and that would be a good way to measure where we need help with investment.

BERMAN: Senator Amy Klobuchar, we appreciate you being with us. Thank you. We wish you the best of luck tonight.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, John. OK, thank you.

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