MSNBC "All In With Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Amy Klobuchar
Interview
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SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Thanks, Ari. It`s great to be back on.
MELBER: Absolutely.
We will get to a lot of this stuff.
But let`s start with why, in addition to everything else you`re doing, you wrote a policy book, and why you think it fits what we`re going through now.
KLOBUCHAR: It -- really, because it affects people in their everyday lives.
And it is everything from your cable rates sometimes to what`s happening with the -- your airfares if you`re in a midsized city, to why there isn`t privacy, better controls on misinformation or privacy when it comes to tech, to what happens with pharma, and why insulin prices have gone way up or why you saw the big increases in EpiPens.
And that`s often because it is one or two companies that dominate a market. And I thought, how can I make this interesting to people, so they will help me get it done? Because nothing has happened. That`s the big unkept secret here, especially when it comes to tech.
And so I wrote it going way back to the founding fathers and wrote it as a story, used over 100 cartoons, if you`re not into reading it, and tried to make the stories come to life, including the fact that the first woman that invented the Monopoly board hated monopolies. And that`s why she invented it.
(LAUGHTER)
MELBER: That`s wild.
You look at what`s going on with tech. We have one of these -- just these headlines, the five biggest tech companies on the planet, as you have been charting, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Alphabet, massive profits and sales in the first quarter of 21, $75 billion.
How do you fix the actual complete inequity of money and power here? Because, as we were reporting earlier in the program, the amount of money these companies have gives them an unfair advantage in how these policies are written in the first place.
KLOBUCHAR: Yes, it`s something. And I have 25 ideas at the end of the book, some of which are for regular people that they can do, as opposed to members of Congress, where there`s a lot we can do.
The first is to make sure that agencies are funded like the FTC and the Department of Justice Antitrust. They cannot take on those trillion-dollar companies with duct tape and Band-Aids. And Senator Grassley and I have a bill that would change the structure of the fees they have to pay when they apply for mergers, put that back into the departments.
We could greatly increase the number of lawyers. Otherwise, they`re never going to be able to take on big cases in an effective way.
Secondly, change some of the standards. Our country has always adapted and rejuvenated capitalism. Third, look back at some of these deals. It was Mark Zuckerberg himself in an e-mail that the House discovered where he said: We`d rather buy than compete.
I think that says it all. Put in place conditions. We just learned about the App Stores a few weeks ago at our bipartisan hearing, where Google and Facebook -- Google -- I`m sorry -- and Apple literally are charging 30 percent to many, many companies like Spotify, their competitors. For them to have any access to the App Store, you have to pay that much to the App Store when customers buy stuff on the apps.
So I think it`s a major, major problem. And that`s why you`re seeing so much action in court right now and why you need to see action in Congress.
MELBER: And then, as promised, your view of what we showed earlier there, Republicans booing Mitt Romney, not over policy, but just over his factual findings that Donald Trump did, indeed, in his view, stoke the insurrection.
Does the Republican Party have a truth problem?
KLOBUCHAR: Yes.
And, that being said, I saw the courage of Mitt Romney standing up many, many times over the last few years. And I`m also really, really happy that Liz Cheney stood up in Congress and that she was so forceful.
And as much as you think I would just be relishing this fight, I believe, in the end, you want to have two parties that embrace truth. Otherwise, how are you ever going to have debate?
And I think when you have a major faction of a major political party that is literally denying the results of an election, that is literally, some of them, embracing QAnon, and other people aren`t decrying it, you have got a major problem going on.
And so I just -- I just actually would be cheering Mitt Romney, instead of booing him, as the people did at his own convention.
MELBER: Well, then you would need to get a ticket to Utah. You would have to go to the convention.
(LAUGHTER)
KLOBUCHAR: I know. I guess I wouldn`t really be invited. I don`t think I would get a good reception, if he didn`t.
But the point of it is, I actually brought him up several times during the Democratic presidential debates from the stage.
MELBER: Yes.
KLOBUCHAR: Because I think we need our people who are willing to speak truth to power.
And you look at the insurrection, which you brought up, at that moment, that night, there were a bunch of people, not just Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, that voted to uphold those results. That was very, very important that night.
MELBER: Yes.
KLOBUCHAR: And that brought us to that inaugural stage where we could stand together and our democracy had that moment where we brushed it off and stood there united.
And I thought that was really important for our country. But, since then, we continue to see this fraying and untruths be told, then leading to misinformation about vaccines. I just think it`s incredibly bad for the fabric of this country.
And I`m proud of Joe Biden for standing up against it and understanding that there are still Republicans -- we know this from the polls and independents -- that support what he`s doing. And that`s why I`m able to go around and talk about -- to Democrats and Republicans in my state.
MELBER: Right. Right.
KLOBUCHAR: But it seems like you have got Republicans supporting his agenda, except the ones in Congress, how it is.
MELBER: Yes.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, appreciate your joining us.
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