CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Amy Klobuchar

Interview

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COOPER: Well, now, in a way it does with senators, Republicans who will have to decide whether they belong to the accountability wing of their party, or the majority of it.

Joining us now, one of the Senate jurors, Minnesota Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Senator, thanks for being with us.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: The former President's legal team is basically making two arguments. One, the trial itself is unconstitutional. Two, that even if it was constitutional, that he was exercising his First Amendment rights and that he quote, "did not direct anyone to commit unlawful actions."

As a former prosecutor yourself, does that our second argument hold water?

KLOBUCHAR: No, it does not. The First Amendment is designed to protect people from their government. In this case, he literally incited people to attack the government, to attack a co-equal branch of the government.

This wasn't about his First Amendment right. He has more than exercised that over the years.

[20:10:11]

KLOBUCHAR: This was about him literally inciting a riot, and you laid out the evidence so well, from his tweets leading up to this from his statements at rallies. And what I remember was the dog whistle when he said, January 6th, that was, of course, the day of the Electoral College votes. That was the day that turned out to be the insurrection.

I remember it because I was preparing -- I was leading our caucus in our response to Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and I thought to myself, well, this is trouble. Because he literally was putting that day out there, telling people to go wild, and then as you point out, as he is glued to the television, by all accounts, watching this horror, in which a police officer dies as a result of his injuries.

When two officers later die from suicide, when we have a woman trampled on the steps of the Capitol, what does he do? He waits hours and hours and hours. And it is only the President-elect that is willing to speak up, Joe Biden, not the President himself.

And there were plenty of Republicans in that room with us that were saying, "When is he going to speak? When is Trump going to say something?" They understood that he controlled this violent mob. And so that is the evidence.

This is not about his First Amendment rights. It's about him inciting a riot. And as for your first question about constitutionality, I love you're quoting the Republican lawyer of the Year, Mr. Cooper, who made it very clear that the plain language supports going forward for this and we have actual precedent with the former Secretary of War in the 1800s who was impeached after he was out of office.

COOPER: The question of whether or not there are going to be witnesses, that's still undecided. I want to read something that the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said before the former President's first impeachment trial in January of last year.

He said, "You cannot, you cannot have a fair trial without the facts; without the testimony from witnesses with knowledge of the events and the related documents." Should the standard be any different this time around?

KLOBUCHAR: This is up to the House Managers and they are going to have to decide if we should have witnesses or not, and I will say one thing, all hundred people in that room witnessed it. We have videotape that I think we're going to see, I've been told that we have never seen that has never shown the light of day yet because it was law enforcement videotape. We didn't have that in that other impeachment hearing.

Now, whether they decide to call witnesses or not, that's up to them. They have asked the President to come forward and he declined. But the point is, is that all of that -- most of the evidence in that other case was behind closed doors. This is right out there on video for us to see.

COOPER: CNN is reporting that aides of the former President say he was enjoying the spectacle, the riot and that he was quote, "loving watching the Capitol mob." That was a senior official telling Jim Acosta.

I mean, what about issuing subpoenas? I know you said it's up to House Managers, obviously. What about issuing subpoenas to those who were with him during the insurrection or Capitol Police who could, you know, describe what they endured? Wouldn't that be the best chance of possibly changing Republican mind?

KLOBUCHAR: Look, any of this is possible, Anderson, I just am in the maybe unenviable position of being the juror in this case. We are not the managers of the case, the prosecutors of the case, even though it's not a criminal case, let me make that clear. That's going to be up to them.

And let's see what evidence they put out, and we have plenty of testimony as well, that has been garnered from what people actually said in the moment when they were there and we have plenty of evidence of what the President said, leading up to it in the report.

So I'm going to let them run their own case. But I do think it's significant that Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell reached an agreement, a bipartisan agreement of how this trial will proceed, including a decision about witnesses, which will be made at some point during the trial.

COOPER: Republican Senator Lankford said today on impeachment, quote: "I don't know of anyone that their mind is not made up." Do you think he's right?

KLOBUCHAR: I don't know about that. I guess, as a former prosecutor, I saw a lot of cases go good or go bad, depending on what the evidence is. I don't think that -- look in politics, did people think we were going to win Georgia? No, I don't think they did. And we did because people listened and made a decision.

So I'm just not going to concede that right now before we have even seen an ounce of evidence in an official proceeding. This is our job.

And I think Liz Cheney did a beautiful job this weekend of describing this, that you just can't pretend it didn't happen. I think that she said, "We've got to make sure this never happens again." And I think that's really important to note that you can't have a President who just because he loses, clearly loses an election decides he is going to mess around with our democracy and literally attack a co-equal branch of government that was simply doing its job to certify the votes that had already been certified.

[20:15:09]

KLOBUCHAR: Maybe Trevor Noah said it best when he said on his show, if you get fired from BestBuy, you can't go and steal a TV on your way out.

So we can't have the precedent be that you can just go do anything you want in President Trump's own words "go wild" and wreak havoc on our democracy to the point where people die and police officers are killed and not have any kind of responsibility for it.

So I look forward, as you pointed out at the end of your segment there of carrying on that mantle of accountability, and I think we have to take it very seriously.

COOPER: Senator Klobuchar, I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: Thanks, Anderson. Look forward to being on again. Thank you.

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