State of the Union: Interview With Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Interview
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Great, Dana.
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No, it is not.
I think Senator Graham knows where the American people are on this. They are with Democratic leaders. And the people of this country believe that the women of this country should be able to make their own decisions about their health care, and not politicians. And they don't want Ted Cruz in the waiting room.
So, what does this mean? What just happened? Well, the Supreme Court correctly decided the case and basically said, we can still -- women of this country, you can still get the medication abortion drug that has been deemed safe for over 20 years after a four-year review.
Yet it was three Trump-appointed judges that basically tried to put their beliefs over the American Medical Association and the doctors of this country. That's what this case is about. And I think what you see when Senator Graham is bringing up bills from, what, the Comstock Act, that is literally passed, Dana, in 1873.
That is 10 years before the "Yellowstone" prequel, OK? That is at a time when health care, when you were treated for pneumonia through bloodletting. It is back in the ages of the Pony Express. The American people do not want to go backwards.
And what I heard today is that Republican leaders in Washington aren't backing down on their opposition to reproductive freedom. They are doubling down.
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I actually think the Biden administration has been quite aggressive.
They just won a major case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court that's going to allow the women of this country to continue to access a safe drug. They took it on aggressively. They made excellent arguments, and they won.
It now goes, of course, to the Fifth Circuit, to a different panel of judges. And I think you're going to see the Justice Department at the helm leading the way to protect the women of this country.
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Well, let me tell you what makes the most sense, and Joe Biden knows this. We know that. That's passing the Women's Protection Act, which is led in the Senate by Tammy Baldwin, Patty Murray, Dick Blumenthal.
A number of us support it. It would codify Roe v. Wade into law. And unlike what Lindsey Graham was talking about there, it simply codifies Roe v. Wade into law.
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And that has worked for years. And that is the way to go, so you don't have a patchwork of laws in this country, with women in Texas having to take a bus to Illinois or Minnesota just to access reproductive health care.
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Well, of course, President Biden should sit down with Speaker McCarthy.
But let me put an idea out there. The proposal that McCarthy has put forward, that belongs in the budget. We just passed a budget with 18 Republicans voting for it in the U.S. Senate. That's what governs now. Our main goal right now is to make clear that we are going to avoid default. The last time when this was in the air, we literally went down in our credit rating back in 2011. What we will see, the repercussions of this are huge, if you go forward as McCarthy wants.
What will happen? You will literally see interest rates go up for mortgages, for loans. You're going to see the stock market plummet again...
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We can't afford -- we have just come out of this pandemic.
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Our economy is strong. Unemployment is low. We don't want to go the wrong way.
So, my proposal is debate this stuff, yes. The budget is being debated right now. That will be decided at the end of the year. That is a place to debate this, not right now with the brinkmanship. Ronald Reagan said it. Stop the brinkmanship on the debt.
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Don't let it default. Donald Trump said it.
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... right now...
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He should negotiate on the budget.
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That is the place to negotiate.
And they should start those negotiations now, not using the American people and their mortgages as hostage, because, right now, we have got to simply make clear we're going to avoid default and get this behind us. We pay our bills.
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I believe that -- first of all, Senator Graham said some good things there.
I completely disagreed with what he said about allowing a temporary replacement. They should have done that. However, I was glad to hear that he wants to see Dianne come back. I want to see her come back too. And Senator Schumer just talked to her last week, and she has said she's coming back shortly, and that will solve this problem.
Secondly, if any member resigns, whether it was Senator Feinstein or anyone in the future, I was really glad to hear Senator Graham say...
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... that he would follow the regular rules and there would be a replacement.
So I think all of that was actually good news.
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Again, she has served our country well. She has said she is coming back.
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And we await her return.
And I have made very clear, at some point, when we have debt ceiling votes and the like, there may be another consideration...
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... that she will have to make with her family.
But, for now, it is very clear. She said she's coming back, and that will resolve the problem.
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President Biden has such a strong record to run on. He has gotten this country through the pandemic. He has the backs of
the American people. And Americans know that, whether it is passing landmark legislation to bring down pharmaceutical prices, whether it is this investment in infrastructure that's going to bring high-speed broadband to every part of the country, including rural areas in my state, or whether it's bringing back manufacturing.
He has the back of the American people. He believes we should make things again in America, invent things, export to the world. And he has stood up for the women of America, and he has stood up for our democracy.
He is going to have an incredibly strong record to run on. And he is a steady hand, when you look at what's out there right now with Donald Trump and what we're hearing again. People don't want that chaos back again.
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Very good. Great to be on, Dana.
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