Amy Klobuchar

Amy Klobuchar

© Image Copyright: United States Senate, http://klobuchar.senate.gov/

Overview

* Was elected U.S. Senator Representing Minnesota in 2006
* Has publicly praised and supported at least two radical Muslim organizations
* Was a major advocate of restoring U.S. diplomatic relations with Communist Cuba
* Claimed that Russia helped Trump win the 2016 U.S. presidential election
* Unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020


An Early Radical Influence

Amy Klobuchar was born on May 25, 1960 in Plymouth, Minnesota, where in 1978 she was the valedictorian of her Wayzata High School graduating class. She subsequently attended Yale University, where, as an undergraduate, she worked as a summer intern for then-Vice President Walter Mondale in 1980. According to Keywiki.org:

“During her time studying political science at Yale in the early 1980s, Amy Klobuchar fell under the influence of several socialist professors. In her 2015 book, The Senator Next Door, Klobuchar writes of [her] political awakening at [the] university: ‘My interest in politics and policy really blossomed in college. I was particularly inspired by Yale political science professor Robert Dahl… Professor Dahl was sometimes described as the dean of American political scientists, and his theories about how American politics worked opened a whole new world of ideas for me.’”

Dahl, who once identified himself as “a Norman Thomas socialist and a radical,” was widely known for his 1940 essay, “On The Theory of Democratic Socialism,” which the Democratic Socialists of America described as “a defense of the model of market socialism developed by Oskar Lange.” Dahl also authored such essays as “Workers’ Control of Industry and the British Labor Party” (1947), and “Marxism and Free Parties” (1948).

Graduating from College & Law School

Klobuchar graduated from Yale in 1982 with a B.A. in political science, and subsequently earned a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1985.

Launching a Legal Career

After completing her legal studies in Chicago, Klobuchar practiced corporate law for a Minneapolis-based firm named Dorsey and Whitney, where she concentrated on telecommunications law until she left the job in 1993.

From 1993 to 1998, Klobuchar was a partner at the Minneapolis law firm of Gray, Plant, Mooty, Mooty, & Bennett.

Advocating for 2-Day Hospital Stays for New Mothers

After giving birth to a daughter in 1995 under circumstances where she was pressured to go home from the hospital before she felt physically and emotionally ready to do so, Klobuchar successfully advocated for the Minnesota legislature to enact a law ensuring that new mothers could have a full, two-day hospital stay after delivering their babies. As Klobuchar would recall two decades later:

“[In my daughter] Abigail’s ‘drive-by birth,’ I was forced by insurance rules to leave the hospital after 24 hours with no sleep and a sick baby in intensive care…. I spent a lot of time thinking about what had happened and decided that I didn’t want any other mom to go through what I had experienced. I became determined to change the policy. I went to the state legislature and worked to pass one of the first laws in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies a minimum 48-hour hospital stay. I testified in support of the bill before both houses of the legislature. The 48-hour maternity hospital-stay rule became law on March 20, 1996.”[1]

Prosecutor

In 1998, Klobuchar, a Democrat, was elected as the Hennepin County (Minnesota) attorney. She went on to serve as the county’s top prosecutor from 1999 to 2006.

U.S. Senator

In April 2005, Klobuchar ran for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota. Her campaign focused on attacking President George W. Bush’s policies on tax cuts, the Iraq War, and Social Security reform. With Bill Clinton and then-Senator Barack Obama both campaigning on her behalf, Klobuchar in 2006 defeated Republican congressman Mark Kennedy with 59% of the vote. According to OpenSecrets.org, the top industries that contributed money to Klobuchar’s victorious Senate run were “Lawyers/Law Firms” ($926,922) and “Women’s Issues” organizations ($767,579).

Klobuchar was sworn into office as a U.S. Senator in January 2007.

Speaker at “Take Back America” Conference

In 2007, Klobuchar was a guest speaker at the 2007 “Take Back America” conference, which was organized by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Campaign for America’s Future.

Alliances with Radical Muslim Groups

In 2008, Klobuchar delivered a video message to the Muslim American Society (MAS) of Minnesota’s national convention. Nine years later, she addressed the MAS-MN convention yet again.

In April 2013, Klobuchar was a guest speaker at the annual banquet of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

In September 2014, Klobuchar heaped more praise upon CAIR: “I firmly believe that every person — regardless of race, gender, or financial status — is entitled to civil rights. I applaud CAIR for empowering American Muslims to participate locally and nationally in social and political activism. Your advocacy for justice, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and continual promotion of civil rights is crucial.”

In October 2017, Klobuchar said to CAIR members: “I am proud to serve you in the United States Senate and look forward to continuing our work together in the future”

Speaker at Blue Green Alliance Conference

In February 2009, Klobuchar spoke at a conference held by the Blue Green Alliance.

Alliance with J Street

In October 2009, Klobuchar attended a gala dinner at the inaugural national conference of J Street.

Re-Elected as Senator

In November 2012, Klobuchar easily defeated Republican Kurt Bills to win re-election to the U.S. Senate. With nearly 1 million more ballots cast in her favor, Klobuchar captured almost 66% of the vote. She also outraised her opponent by a margin of $10.2 million to $953,000.

Advocating Immigration Reform

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing perpetrated by a pair of Chechen terrorists in April 2013, Klobuchar called for comprehensive immigration reform. “I don’t think it’s a reason to slow it [immigration reform] down,” she said of the terrorist attack. “I think it’s actually a reason to make reforms,” so that the government could more closely track “who gets in here and how they get in and who they are.”

Ally of Senator Al Franken

In April 2013 as well, Klobuchar praised the “good job” that fellow Minnesota Senator Al Franken was doing as a legislator: “He’s put Minnesota first and done his work.” Later that year, in an effort to more easily and rapidly confirm President Barack Obama’s various nominees for cabinet posts and judicial appointments, both Klobuchar and Franken would petition for eliminating the Senate filibuster rules.

Supporting a Thaw in U.S. Relations with Cuba

In mid-February 2015, Klobuchar traveled to Cuba for four days with Missouri U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, Virginia U.S. Senator Mark Warner, and Sara Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas. Their goal was to advance a bipartisan effort in the U.S. Congress to lift America’s longstanding embargo against Communist Cuba.

On February 23, 2015, Klobuchar hosted an event called the “Modernizing U.S.-Cuba Relations Summit,” to promote a warmer relationship between the United States and Cuba.

In February 2015 as well, Klobuchar was a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 299, the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, which stated that “the President may not prohibit or otherwise regulate travel to or from Cuba by U.S. citizens or legal residents, or any of the transactions incident to such travel, including banking transactions.”

On March 27, 2015, Senator Klobuchar introduced the “Freedom to Export to Cuba Act,” which sought to repeal or amend existing laws that had restricted trade between the U.S. and Cuba.

In April 2015, Klobuchar again called for the U.S. to end its trade embargo and travel ban against Cuba.

In July 2015, the Cuban flag was ceremoniously raised over the newly re-established Cuban embassy on 16th Street NW in Washington, D.C.  Attending the event were such notables as Klobuchar, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, Senator Patrick Leahy, Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Karen Bass, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Rep, Jose Serrano, Rep. Raul Grijalva, Senator Jeff Flake (the only Republican legislator in attendance), and actor Danny Glover.

In August 2015, Klobuchar traveled to Havana, Cuba, to commemorate the official re-opening of the U.S. embassy in that city. Others in attendance included U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Rep. Jim McGovern, Senator Patrick Leahy, Senator Barbara Boxer, Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Steve Cohen, Rep. Karen Bass, and Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona.

From March 20 to 22, 2016, Klobuchar was one of numerous Democrats to accompany President Obama on a historic trip to Cuba, the first visit to that country by any American president since 1928. The House delegation included Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Karen Bass, Cheri Bustos, Sam Farr, Rosa DeLauro, Barbara Lee, Charles Rangel, Kathy Castor, David Cicilline, Steve Cohen, Jan Schakowsky, Peter Welch, Alan Lowenthal, Jim McGovern, Xavier Becerra, and Eliot Engel. The Senate delegation included, in addition to Klobuchar: Dick Durbin, Heidi Heitkamp, Patrick Leahy, Tom Udall, and Republican Jeff Flake.

Calling for Sanctions to Punish Russia for Alleged Election Interference

Deeply disappointed by Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race, Klobuchar in December joined Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain in calling for sanctions to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the election on Trump’s behalf. “We have to sanction Russia for these cyberattacks [and] send a clear message to the incoming administration that there is a lot of bipartisan support in Congress for going after this,” she said.

On May 13, 2017, Klobuchar delivered the commencement address to the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Referring to alleged Russian election interference, she discussed the “assault from a foreign country and our democracy” and the need to “get [to] the bottom of what happened.”

Urging Graduates to “Embrace Internationalism”

Also during her May 13, 2017 commencement address to the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Klobuchar exhorted the graduates to consider the “humanitarian” and “moral” aspects of immigration reform, and exhorted them to “embrace internationalism.”

Refusing to Ask Senator Al Franken to Resign Due to Sexual-Harassment Charges

In early December 2017, prior to Senator Franken’s eventual resignation due to sexual-harassment allegations, Klobuchar refused to publicly ask him to leave office. “I had condemned his conduct early on when the first allegation was made,” she said during a CNN appearance on December 8. “[But] I felt I was in a different role as his colleague, that I’m someone that has worked with him for a long time, there’s a lot of trust there, and I felt it was best to handle it in that way.” Klobuchar also redirected the topic of sexual misconduct onto President Trump and Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, suggesting:  “You have a President that is down there telling people to vote for someone where there is, to me, irrefutable written evidence that he was preying on underage girls.”

Klobuchar & Brett Kavanaugh

In September 2018, Klobuchar was among the leading Democrats to grill Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about sexual assault allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford. With scant evidence and conflicting accounts of the incident, Ford accused the eventual Supreme Court Justice of having attempted to rape her 36 years earlier when they were both in high school. Eager to block another Trump nomination to the court, Democrats like Klobuchar were committed to portraying Kavanaugh as guilty of the accusations. During her exchange with Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Klobuchar asked him if he had ever consumed so much alcohol that he “didn’t remember what happened the night before or part of what happened.” In response, Kavanaugh appeared visibly irritated by the Senator’s insinuation that he struggled with alcohol abuse. Klobuchar later told CNN’s Jake Tapper that she was “really stunned” by Kavanaugh’s responses, and suggested that she had only brought the subject into discussion because her own father was a recovering alcoholic. The Senator also denounced Republicans’ lack of “bravery” during the Kavanaugh confirmation process, suggesting that they were “afraid” of an FBI investigation into his alleged misconduct as a teenager.

Re-Elected Again to the Senate

Klobuchar again won re-election to the U.S. Senate in November 2018, when she defeated Republican Jim Newberger with 60.3% of the vote.

Reports of Klobuchar’s Abusiveness Toward Staffers

In early February 2019, the Huffington Post issued a report claiming that three former Klobuchar staffers had characterized the senator as a person who could be extremely abusive and difficult to work for:

“[S]ome former Klobuchar staffers, all of whom spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity, describe Klobuchar as habitually demeaning and prone to bursts of cruelty that make it difficult to work in her office for long.

“It is common for staff to wake up to multiple emails from Klobuchar characterizing one’s work as ‘the worst’ briefing or press release she’d seen in her decades of public service, according to two former aides and emails seen by HuffPost.

“Although some staffers grew inured to her constant put-downs […], others found it grinding and demoralizing. Adding to the humiliation, Klobuchar often cc’d large groups of staffers who weren’t working on the topic at hand, giving the emails the effect of a public flogging.”

The staffers also accused Klobuchar of using her staff for “performing personal errands, such as making her personal appointments, washing dishes at her home [and] picking up her dry cleaning.” In response to the various allegations, Klobuchar told MSNBC: “[Y]es, I can be tough and push people, I know that.…And I have, I’d say, high expectations for myself, I have high expectations for people that work for me, but I have high expectations for this country.”

Presidential Campaign Announced

In February 2019, Klobuchar announced her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. She embraced a progressive platform that included: ambitious climate change proposals like rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement; providing a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens; increasing the total number of immigrants admitted annually into the United States; and strengthening abortion rights and LGBT protections.

Key Supporters of Klobuchar’s Political Campaigns

Among the noteworthy organizations that have supported Klobuchar’s political campaigns over the years are: 21st Century Democrats, EMILY’s List, and the Democracy Alliance.

Klobuchar’s Positions on Key Issues in Her Presidential Campaign

As matters of principle, Klobuchar believes that:

  • all women should have an unrestricted right to abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy – subsidized by taxpayers, in cases of economic hardship;
  • public and private employers alike should be legally required to implement affirmative-action hiring and promotion policies that give preference to African Americans and women, as compensation for historical injustices;
  • the principle of church-state separation is inviolable and should preclude permitting prayer in the public schools, or the posting of the Ten Commandments in public places;
  • the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is an excellent statute that can serve as a strategic stepping stone toward the eventual implementation of a government-run, single-payer healthcare system;
  • Social Security should remain entirely and permanently under federal control, with no movement whatsoever toward any degree of privatization;
  • voucher programs designed to enable low-income parents to send their children to private schools rather than to failing public schools, constitute bad policy because they rob the public schools of vital resources;
  • wealthy people and high income earners should pay dramatically higher tax rates than those with less wealth or lower incomes;
  • the government should make few restrictions on immigration to the United States;
  • voter ID laws are racist and designed to suppress minority voting;
  • federal spending on public infrastructure projects and job programs is crucial to the success of any economic recovery program;
  • the nationalization of banks and corporations is preferable to federal bailouts of those entities.

Klobuchar Quotes about Key Issues during Her Presidential Campaign

Below are a number of quotes by, and facts about, Klobuchar’s positions on a wide array of key political issues, as documented by OnTheIssues.org and several other sources:

Abortion

Codify Roe v. Wade into law, & fund Planned Parenthood: “We should codify Roe v. Wade into law.… Over 70 percent of the people support Roe v. Wade. Over 90 percent of the people support funding for Planned Parenthood and making sure that women can get the health care they need.” (Source: November Democratic primary debate in Atlanta, November 20, 2019)

Repeal the Hyde Amendment [which bars federal funding of abortion services]: “It’s not fair that women who don’t have as much money, don’t have the same choices as women who are wealthy.” (Source: CBS Face the Nation, 2019 interview, June 9, 2019)

Drugs

Legalize marijuana: Klobuchar is in favor of legalizing marijuana. (Source: Politico “2020Dems on the Issues”, July 17, 2019)

Reduce sentences for non-violent drug offenders: “One of the things that we are starting to resolve is the federal drug sentences. I was a sponsor of the FIRST STEP Act, a co-sponsor. That was the important law that just passed on a bipartisan basis that brought down the federal drug sentences, which were much higher than the local drug sentences for nonviolent offenders. It’s called the FIRST STEP Act because there has to be a SECOND STEP Act.” (Source: CNN State of the Union, 2019, March 17, 2019)

Education

Address student debt in ways beyond free college: “The first thing I would do is allow students, and no matter how old they are, former students to refinance their student loans at that rate that’s a little above 3 percent. we could even go lower to find some even better rate than that. But that’s what I think we need to do to bring the interest rate payments down for those Americans that still have the student loans. The second thing I would do is expand Pell Grant and make it easier for people to use Pell Grant. Those aren’t loans, those are grants. Depending on your income level to make that easier as well as the amount of money that you get. The third thing I [would] do is bring back President Obama’s plan for free community college.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, April 22, 2019)

Loan forgiveness for those taking public service jobs: “People that go into those careers, that’s loan forgiveness. I strongly support that. I think we can also expand that into in-demand jobs. I would target the loan forgiveness at those that — for instance, I brought up people that went into public service, in-demand locations and in-demand jobs that we have in our economy.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, April 22, 2019)

Free community college; expand Pell Grants: “I think we have to do everything to help our students afford college. My idea is to make it easier to refinance, to start with two-year degrees, the community colleges being free. We need to make it easier to afford college, by making it easier to refinance these loans, by extending Pell Grants so it includes more students.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, February Feb 18, 2019)

During a June 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate televised by CNN, Klobuchar discussed her plan to “make community college free and make sure that everyone else besides that top percentile gets help with their education.”

Energy & Oil

Reverse Trump climate rollbacks and put a price on carbon: “We need to get back into the International Climate Change Agreement. I will do that on day one. On day two, bring back the clean power rules; on day three, the gas mileage standards. I see the governor of California, who has been working so hard to get those done, defied every step of the way by the Trump administration. Then introduce legislation to put a price on carbon and build a bridge to the next century, which means we must upgrade buildings and building standards.” (Source: Newshour/Politico/PBS, Democratic primary debate, December 19, 2019)

No all-out ban on fracking; we need a transition: “I see natural gas as a transitional fuel. It is better than oil, but it’s not nearly as good as wind and solar. However, you have situations where you have dangerous fracking that shouldn’t be happening. So as president in my first 100 days, I will review every fracking permit there is and decide which ones should be allowed to be continued, and which ones are too dangerous. Then you go from there. And as you put a price on carbon, you will see less of this going on — because once you put rules of the road in place, it’s going to become less economically feasible for that kind of fuel. I remember only a few years ago we were celebrating work of the Obama administration for natural gas-fueled buses. Why? It was better than the old kind of buses. So you have to see this as a transition as we move ahead to a better and cleaner environment.” (Source: CNN Climate Crisis Town Hall marathon, September 4, 2019)

Carbon neutral is goal; nuclear/coal during transition: “We have to go to carbon neutral by no later than 2050. With nuclear I would look at all the plants we have right now. It is about 20% of our energy and it doesn’t emit carbon. I would look at those plants and make sure they’re safe and figure out what upgrades we have to make, but I wouldn’t expand nuclear unless we can find safe storage. I wouldn’t allow for building of new coal plants. What we’re [concerned about] as we phase out coal plants, is how we can make them better for the environment.” (Source: Climate Crisis Town Hall (CNN 2019 Democratic primary), September 4, 2019)

Would rejoin climate pact & propose new legislation: “Climate change isn’t happening 100 years from now. It’s happening right now, and that’s why as your president, on day one, I would get us back into the international climate change agreement. That’s day 1. On day 2 and day 3, I would bring back the clean power rules that the Obama administration worked out that will make a big dent in this. I will bring back the gas mileage standards that they just left. I would propose sweeping legislations for green buildings and new ideas, and we need to do this.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, April 22, 2019)

Green New Deal opens discussion on climate change: “The Green New Deal is so important for our country [despite disagreements] on exactly how and when it will work. This is a discussion that we must have as a country. I will, as first day as the president, sign us back into the international climate change agreement. I will also bring back the clean power rules that the Trump administration left on the cutting room floor. I will also bring back the gas mileage standards and then propose sweeping legislation to upgrade our infrastructure.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, February 18, 2019)

Environment

Environmental justice: impacted community gets what’s needed:“I do have a price on my plan. What I would do is first of all, putting a price on carbon, and you can do this with cap-and-trade, or you can do it with simply a carbon tax, or you can do it with a combination with the renewable electricity standard. That alone will bring in trillions of dollars. And some of that can be used to help communities that are going to be affected by this, and make sure people have jobs coming out of this. Then the other part about it is environmental justice, right? And making sure that the communities that are most affected get the help that they need. Once you repeal parts of that Republican tax bill that were so regressive, using some of that money for infrastructure, you get the funding you need–the $2 trillion to $3 trillion range, part of it is with matching funds.” (Source: CNN Climate Crisis Town Hall marathon, September 4, 2019)

In February 2019, Klobuchar informed Fox News that she planned to vote in favor of the Green New Deal, a plan to spend trillions of dollars on efforts to combat climate change and transform the American economy: “I see it as aspirational. I see it as a jump-start. So, I would vote yes, but I would also, if it got down to the nitty-gritty of an actual legislation, as opposed to, oh, here are some goals we have, that would be different for me.”

Government_Reform

Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United: “What is making a case for progress about? That is what unites us, which is campaign finance reform. That means passing a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.” (Source: Newshour/Politico/PBS, Democratic primary debate, December 19, 2019)

Register all to vote; ban gerrymandering and voter purges: “I have led the way on voting. One solution that would make a huge difference would be to allow every kid in the country to register to vote when they turn 18. If we had a system like this, and we did something about gerrymandering, and we stopped the voting purges, and we did something significant about making sure we don’t have money in politics from the outside, Stacey Abrams would be governor of this state right now.” (Source: November Democratic primary debate in Atlanta, November 20, 2019)

Russia didn’t just meddle in our election; they invaded it: “I don’t see a moral equivalency between our country and Russia. Vladimir Putin is someone who has shot down planes over Ukraine, who has poisoned his opponent, and we have not talked about what we need to do to protect ourselves from Russia invading our election. This wasn’t meddling–that’s what I do when I call my daughter on a Saturday night and ask her what she’s doing. This was much more serious than that. This was actually invading our election. So to protect ourselves in 2020, we need backup paper ballots in every single state. And then we need to stop the social media companies from running paid political ads, without having to say where those ads came from and who paid for them. That’s the Honest Ads Act, that’s a bipartisan bill that I lead.” (Source: October Democratic CNN/NYTimes Primary debate, October 15, 2019)

Pass Equality Act by marshalling public support: “It is time to pass the Equality Act. Our problem is you can get married in one state, and then you can get fired from your job for being gay. That’s why the Equality Act is so important.” (Source: CNN LGBT Town Hall, October 10, 2019)

Health Care

Non-profit public option:  “Senator [Bernie] Sanders and I have worked together on pharmaceuticals for a long, long time. And we agree on this. But what I don’t agree with is his position on health care. This debate isn’t real. Over 2/3 of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate are not on the bill that you and Senator [Elizabeth] Warren are on. You have numerous governors that are Democratic that don’t support this. The answer is a nonprofit public option.” (Source: 7th Democrat primary debate, on eve of Iowa caucus , January 14, 2020)

Provide immediate health care for undocumented immigrants: “I think on the national basis, as we go forward, get immediate health care for people, yes. Yes for immediate health care needs, but as far as other benefits, I think that has got to be a part of the discussion of comprehensive immigration reform.” (Source: CBS Face the Nation interview, June 30, 2019)

Medicare/Medicaid can be step towards universal care: “I think we share the goal of universal health care. This idea is that you use Medicare or Medicaid without any insurance companies involved, you can do it either way. And the estimates are 13 million people would see a reduction in their premiums, 12 more million people would get covered. I think it is a beginning and the way you start and the way you move to universal health care.” (Source: June Democratic Primary debate (first night in Miami) , Jun 26, 2019)

Supports public option for Medicaid & Medicare: “First of all, we need to bring down premiums — and they’re affecting everyone. You can do that many ways. One of my major proposals is to bring back that Public Option idea that’s been floating around, that should have been put in, in the first place. That gives you a choice. You could do it with Medicaid, you can do it with Medicare, so that you have a less expensive option to pick from.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, April 22, 2019)

Expand Medicare to age 55: According to PBS: “Klobuchar would like to expand Medicare to include Americans age 55 and older, and possibly more. While she has long supported ‘single-payer, universal’ government health coverage, the Minnesota senator has not yet said if she would back the concept of ‘Medicare for All,’ which would replace private health insurance with a government health care system.” (Source: PBS News hour, February 10, 2019)

In March 2019, Klobuchar told an audience of Iowa voters that “[w]e need universal healthcare in this country”: “Health care shouldn’t be a privilege. That means the most immediate way to do this is a public option, something that Barack Obama wanted to do … a public option with either Medicaid or Medicare that would bring the prices down for everyone. We need to take on the pharmaceutical crisis and bring down the cost of prescription drugs.”

Immigration

In February 2020, Klobuchar claimed that “DREAMers”—illegal migrants protected under the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—are “our future.”

Jobs

Enact laws to assure equal pay & equal opportunity:Pass the Equal Pay Act. That would be a very good thing. We already passed the Lilly Ledbetter Act. That was something that we were really proud of that made it easier for women to contest these kinds of cases when they’re in the work place. I think also making it easier for women to get the kind of jobs they should. I would love to pass the ERA right. Get that cemented into law across the country and then make sure we have role models across the country.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, April 22, 2019)

Minimum wage must be raised: “It is an unbelievable thing that we have not increased the federal minimum wage for something like a decade. And it’s just stuck where it is. And we should be increasing the minimum wage. That brings up the wage everywhere.” (Source: CNN Town Hall, February 18, 2019)

Tax_Reform

Return to 39.6% top rate; open to wealth tax: According to The Nation magazine: She supports ‘at least’ the 39.6 percent top marginal tax rate in effect before Trump took office. She said that a wealth tax ‘could work’ and that she remains ‘open to it.’ Her administration would move quickly to equalize tax rates for capital gains and ordinary income, ensure that incomes over $1 million face a minimum 30 percent tax, and close the carried interest loophole that lets fund managers sidestep billions of dollars in taxes.” (Source: The Nation magazine, November 19, 2019)

Characterizing Trump & His Supporters As Racists & White Nationalists

On August 4, 2019, Kasie Hunt, the host of the MSNBC program Kasie DC, asked Klobuchar, “Do you think President Trump is a white nationalist?” The senator replied: “Remember what he said after Charlottesville when he said that there were two sides? I think he was speaking as a white nationalist when the other side is the Ku Klux Klan. I have said in the past that he is racist. He has followers, clearly, that are white nationalists and racists.”

Dropping out of Presidential Race, & Endorsing Biden

On March 2, 2020, Klobuchar officially ended her presidential campaign and endorsed former senator and vice president Joe Biden for the office. “[I]t is time for a president that will bring decency and dignity back to the White House,” she said. Touting Biden as a champion of the poor, Klobuchar also likened him to Franklin Roosevelt.

Far-Left Congressman Don Fraser Was Klobuchar’s “Mentor in Politics”

After Don Fraser — who served as a U.S. Representative from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district from 1963 to 1979, and as mayor of Minneapolis from 1980 to 1994 — died in June 2019, Klobuchar described him as having been “my mentor in politics.” Some notable facts about Fraser:

  • In 1972, he was part of a coalition of congressmen, radical activists, and some communists who called upon the U.S. government to relax American relations with Fidel Castro‘s Cuba.
  • In June 1977, he attended a Bureau Meeting of the Socialist International.
  • In April 1982, the Institute for Policy Studies sponsored a group of leftists that included Fraser, Marcus Raskin, and Robert Borosage, who together traveled to Moscow to meet with high-level Soviet officials who were responsible for disseminating disinformation and propaganda for U.S. consumption.
  • On October 9 2004, Fraser addressed the Democratic Socialists of America’s Mid-West Regional Conference in Minneapolis.

Portraying America As a Racist Nation in Her Eulogy for George Floyd

On June 2, 2020, Klobuchar went to the floor of the Senate to deliver a speech eulogizing George Floyd, eight days after he had died in a physical altercation with a white Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin. The senator used the occasion to: characterize America as a nation thoroughly infested with white racism; portray President Trump as a grandstanding publicity hound who cared nothing about the well-being of blacks in America; and praise the millions of “protesters [who] are shining a light on [racial] injustice that we pushed into the shadows for too long.” Below are some extended excerpts from Klobuchar’s remarks:

“I come to the floor today to honor a life lost, share in the grief of a family and a nation in pain, and call for this [Senate] body to take action to reform a system that’s been broken for too long. George Floyd should be alive today, but he isn’t. He was murdered by police in my state, a death both horrifying and inhumane but not unique. We literally saw his life evaporate before our eyes. The whole country saw it. The whole world saw it. We know that our community in Minneapolis and across America, our African American community, has seen this horror before and has experienced injustice for far too long. They’ve had enough. They are angry and in pain, and they are calling out for justice. They have had enough. They are angry and in pain, and they are calling out for justice. […]

“Sweeping reform starts with accountability in this individual case, but it doesn’t end there. We all know that these officers work within a bigger system, so that is why I’ve called for a full-scale investigation into the patterns and practices of racially discriminatory policing in the Minneapolis police by the Department of Justice. In addition to ongoing local, state, and federal investigations. […]

“The words engraved on the Supreme Court building, equal justice under law, we know have never really been true for millions of African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, and other minority groups. There is systematic racism at every level of our judicial system, and that calls for systematic change.

“We must take action to end unconstitutional discriminatory policing across the country. We can start by making sure that police misconduct is independently investigated and that we hold officers criminally accountable when they break the law and violate the trust that is needed between law enforcement officers and the people they have sworn to protect. […]

“We should also create a diverse bipartisan clemency advisory board, one that includes victim advocates as well as prison and sentencing reform advocates that would look at these issues from a different perspective. We should strengthen post conviction reviews with conviction integrity units across the country. […]

“All of this, expanding our nation’s drug court, something that I’ve been leading on in the Senate for years, changing that conversation about drug and alcohol treatment, reforming the cash bail system. If there is anything that we as a U.S. Senate can do to eliminate injustice within our justice system, we should do it and we should do it now. […]

“We also see it in the number of people dying [of COVID-19]. In Louisiana, African Americans account for 60% of the deaths, but 33% of the population. In Georgia a study of eight hospitals found that 80% of their COVID-19 patients were African Americans yet 30% of the population. […] They are getting this virus, this sometimes fatal virus, at a much higher rate. This calls for … investment like Jim Clyburn‘s plan to invest in underserved areas, impoverished areas that have been that way for a long, long time. Senator Booker is carrying that bill in the U.S. Senate.

“Martin Luther King once said we are all tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one of us directly affects all of us indirectly. And that means in the long term, an economy that works for everyone, with fair wages, with child care, with retirement savings, closing the wealth gap, blacks and Latinos have a tenth of the median income right now of the white households. It means voting rights, the scene that we saw in Wisconsin where people were standing in the rain with homemade masks and garbage bags in the rain, just to be able to vote, risking their lives and their health while the president [Trump] of the United States was able to vote in the luxury of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, because he could get a mail-in ballot from Palm Beach, Florida.

“That’s the split screen for you. That’s why people are out peacefully marching. That’s what they are angry about. It is police misconduct. It is the murder of George Floyd. It is the long-time economic disparities, but it is also the long-time suppression of the vote and the unfairness of all of this. […]

“The protesters are shining a light on injustice that we pushed into the shadows for too long. The front line workers and volunteers are serving the communities they love and they are looking to all of us to deliver the reforms we’ve promised, not just in speeches, not just in campaigns, but in reality. Not just for George Floyd — and his legacy should be so much more than those nine minutes [during which Officer Chauvin had pressed his knee upon Floyd’s neck] — or Philando Castile or Jamar Clark or Breonna Taylor,[2] because we took an oath. […] We placed our hand on that Bible and swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. The enemy we face now is racism. The enemy we face now is injustice. I don’t know what else to say because too many words have been said, and maybe it’s time to stop talking. Maybe it is time to start acting. It is time to get to work. It is time to do our jobs.”

Advocating Censorship of Social Media for Vaccine-Related “Misinformation”

As part of Democrats’ “goal…to get everyone vaccinated in any way and message possible,” Klobuchar suggested in July 2021 that social media companies should be held liable when they failed to censor “misinformation” about the COVID-19 vaccine:

At the same time, the misinformation on the internet, which is something I’m personally taking on, is outrageous. These are the biggest, richest companies in the world that control these platforms, and they’ve got to take this crap off. We are in a public health crisis. We still are. We’ve seen major improvements thanks to the vaccines, the ingenuity of people, the Biden administration getting this out, but this is holding us back. Two-thirds of the people that are not vaccinated believe something that they read on the internet. That’s all the facts I need. That’s from a Kaiser Foundation report. So I’m going to introduce a bill to limit the misinformation on vaccines by saying, you guys are liable if you don’t take it off your platforms.

Calling for Abolition of the Senate Filibuster

In September 2021, Klobuchar told CNN that the Senate’s Democratic majority “should abolish the filibuster” in order to pass legislation that they wished to enact on “voting rights,” “climate change,” and abortion rights.

Condemning the Supreme Court’s Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade

On May 2, 2022, Politico reported that an unidentified individual had leaked an initial draft majority opinion, written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in which the Court had decided to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. “No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending,” said Politico. Whereas Roe had guaranteed federal constitutional protections for abortion rights, the new ruling would return responsibility for those rights to each individual state. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in his opinion, adding: “We hold that Roe and Casey [a 1992 decision that largely reaffirmed the rights set forth in Roe] must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

In response to the Court’s decision, an outraged Klobuchar said:

“If this leaked opinion is true, they are literally overturning 50 years of precedent with a case that is supported by 80% of the American public, just because they have their own personal political views. And we have no idea what floodgate will be opened on birth control and the like. We have Republican legislators that are talking about a six-week [gestation] ban on abortion. This is going to be complete chaos if this goes through.

“If you look at what [Alito] says, [that] abortion, the word’s not in the Constitution. Well, birth control is not in the Constitution, and that also uses a similar argument in past cases for a right to privacy. The term ‘gay marriage’ is not in the Constitution. The court has interpreted the Constitution to protect these rights for Americans, so that is why this is such a big deal.

“If this court is going to turn back the clock and take away all the rights that have been considered in well thought out cases, we have basically a revolution going on when it comes to women’s rights, and people are going to have to go to the ballot box and make that decision.”

Footnotes:


  1. The Senator Next Door, by Amy Klobuchar, p.122-3 , Aug 24, 2015
  2. These were the names of other black people who had died in highly publicized confrontations with police officers.

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