And, This is How Republicans Kill Medicaid with Senator Amy Klobuchar

it gets things done. I mean it is remarkable. You look at at so many people in the Senate and you just you feel like, you know, it's a club, and obviously it's it's you know, it's there's a lot of status, but you're often not necessarily affirmed that there's a lot of progress being made, but you are able to lay claim to a lot of progress, including just yesterday, President Trump signed a bill to Take it Down Act, a bipartisan bill that you and Ted CRU's co sponsor tell me more about it.

and they actually take their own lives. So Center Cruise and I he is the chair of the Commerce Committee right now, we joined forces and introduced this bill called the Take It Down Act. It simply says the platforms have to take down these images non consential images in forty eight hours and then creates criminal liability on the people that put them on or extends criminal liability. So we got that through the Senate, but then we were stopped at the end of the year. It was part

of a bigger bill. And at the inaugural lunch, as you're aware of, Governor, I cheered the inauguration something I took on before we knew who won. And I brought up to the President and the First Lady this bill and I said, this is a bill that you know would fit in First Lady with some of the work you're doing. And three days later her office called ours and then she really helped to get it through the House and it got signed into law.

something to be hopeful about? Is this one off?

just go on. And however, I do think the president of this incident aside where we were able to work on this bill with him when the rhetoric and the things that are said makes it harder to function and bipartisan because he will go after people if they don't do exactly what he wants, and it's all part of how he's doing this. So you know, in this case, I guess we got an exception. They like this bill,

but I do think it makes it harder. And my goal in life is to do what best for the country, And as you know, sometimes you take grief when you work with people or take positions that not everyone agrees with. But I do think that we need more of that, not less of it when it comes to governing right now. So I'm glad the bill got passed into law. I continue to, like most many Americans, you know, wake up

every day and think, what did he do? Now? He just fired the Congressional Library, and he's getting these medicaid cuts, He's moving us backwards on clean energy, all these things that I think that actually gives our country a cutting edge medical research we should be moving forward. So but despite all that, I will continue to do what I think is best and if there's a way to do things from permitting reform on where we can get things moving better. I'm game to working with Republicans.

were there. You're the chair of a joint committee, a bipartisan committee in Congress. That's related to the inaugural. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that role. But that role led you to give a little speech remarks about enduring democracy, etc. I'm curious, So what enduring memories do you have around those Inhugro facilities can't.

And I will still go down in American history as the only person who has ever ridden in a car alone with Donald Trump and Joe Biden for about twenty minutes one day. I'll reveal that conversation was quite talkative. I brought up the fires in California. You will say that that was one of my plans to do because I knew that that President Trump was going out there and President Biden had been there. So I thought, okay, here's a common ground moment with the firefighters and the like.

And we talked about many other things as well, and it was a very vibrant conversation. And then I spent the day the inauguration and the like, and it's ends with the ended with that lunch. But I had my four minutes, and I decided I wrote every word myself, and I said, I want this to meet the test of time, because I knew what was coming at us, the assault on the rule of law, the economic uncertainty, and so what I said were these three things Number one.

Our democracy is a hot mess. It always has been, but it's our democracy, and you know we must be as leaders. And I meant every person in their own neighborhood or whatever they do, we've got to be the shelter in the storm and protect that democracy. Now that's a Bob Dylan quote. Kevin, he is from Minnesota and just a little Hollywood moment. I like to complete unknown. I thought it should have won the Academy Award. I'm going to weigh in on that right now. Okay, But

I didn't say that at the inauguration. Okay, I did say that reats regrets or yeah. Secondly, that that presidential inauguration. In other countries, it's held in a presidential palace or executive office building. In our country, it's held in the People's House for a reason, and that's because we have three equal branches of government under the Constitution. And all nine justices were there, maybe a show of for not

all there, they all aresvp'ed. When it was outside. I knew the list, and we had the Congress there, and we're still waiting for some of the Republicans in Congress to stand up. We only need four of them to stand up against say Medicaid cuts. The third thing and final thing was just that the power in that rotunda, despite all the billionaires that were in there, it did not come from in that rotunda, from a freshman member of Congress to the President of the United States. It

came from outside of the rotunda. And to me, when you see people standing up, yes, activists, people who are angry, but you also see the quiet voices now of farmers, soybean farmers in the middle of Minnesota who show up at a town hall find themselves seated next to a woman who's holding a sign I was there this happened that says this is not normal, looks at her, which is a common sign people are holding now in rallies Democrats, and he says to her, what do you mean by that?

And she said, well, this isn't normal. What's happening. Well, I'm normal, she goes, No, I know you're normal. But the reason I raise that story is the quiet voices, the people that don't usually show up. The fact that they're standing up right now and feel like they must talk to their governor or their senator, or their mayor or their congress member. That matters, and We've got to keep that part of democracy alive and strong.

over under? I mean, where do you think we are on the basis of that speech, This notion of it enduring democracy have been vandalized even more acutely than you had even imagined one hundred plus days ago.

California's in that box. So I knew that, and then we were with Biden on the stage that aside. I didn't predict they would go this far with you know, just dismantling usaid, dismantling people's hopes and dreams, with all kinds of cuts and things they've done on cancer research

and the like. Their willingness to even just take on independent bodies like the Consumer Protection Agency, which we called one hundred and fifty million bad products and saved Americans from lead pois and dangerous pool drains and the like.

Just their willingness and the president's willingness to bully people and whether it's journalists or universities, and then the other flip side of it, now I'm going to get to my silver lining here, is just that the courts have been standing up over two hundred times with judges appointed by Bush and by Trump himself and by Reagan. I didn't even know those judges were still out there, but they are. They and they, along with the Democratic appointed judges,

have been making courageous decisions. So that is a pushback. So that's why some people say we're in a crisis. I'm just a little more saying when I look at the Civil War. Okay, that was that was a constitutional crisis. To me, we're in a starting to be in an economic crisis if this continues, but we are closer to a constitutional crisis. But to me, it hasn't arrived yet

because of what the judges doing their jobs. The fact that while they are defying the administration is defying some of these rulings for sure, and where that is going to be decided in the near future. They are following some of them. They just seem to pick and choose which ones they don't like. So all of that it doesn't make it feel better, but it makes it to me like you just can't give up the fight. It's made a difference. I started the first weekend after that inauguration.

I found myself at the container store in suburban Minneapolis, and I had this cart and I had all these like Marie Condo like plastic things because I decided I was going to reorganize my coffees and teas. And this stranger comes up the center. I know why you're here, and I go, well, I just it's Saturday morning. I just I'm going to organize my kitchen. She goes, no, you're here because you feel like your life is out of control in your job in Washington, and you're trying

to control things you're doing. And I went there two other times and then I got to work. So the point is is that we have all been through this. But the answer when you look at some of these court decisions, when you look at some of the Republicans who've been so timid, but when you look at what they're starting to say on Medicaid, that if you give up now, it's the worst. The citizens standing up, calling, emailing, yelling.

I mean, it has made a difference. So I just I and those quiet voices have at just as much.

let me go back. You talked about this, we sort of challenge, and I appreciate your point of view on this whether or not we're in a constitutional crisis, the issues around rule of law, but you did imply and you've been very vocal on this, and I'm really grateful you've been one of the leading voices keeping the focus and the attention and not getting distracted on the fundamental issue of these tariffs, which I personally believe he has

no legal authority. And of course California found a lawsuit along those lines, does in other states joining that under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. But the question of the tariffs, it's remarkable to me how you know, it's still dominant in our lives, but not necessarily in the media in the last week or so. Back to this notion of you know, I guess we can get to the big beautiful bill, We can get to this notion

of distractions, et cetera. But the impacts you've highlighted the impacts of these tariffs that continue to this day thirty percent in China, obviously, tariffs to our big trading partners north and south, in Canada and in Mexico, but impact to small businesses, and you've called it out in your own state, and you're seeing a state of anxiety and uncertainty all across the United States? Is that fair or unfair? Over stated and understated.

our closest allies in the world. In Minnesota, you know, we can see Canada from our porch like they are our biggest trading partner. They eclipse the next few together, and this is very damaging for building materials for homes. For you look at some of the fertilizer and things

like that. Our soybean market in China is huge and while he reduced those tariffs, they're still at an inordinately high level as opposed to using the clout of the United States of America, this incredible economy to negotiate more targeted things, and that is not how he's done things. And he's pushing China more into the arms of Russia.

And then China is advertising. You've probably seen their ad in English to other countries say hey, do business with us, because we have decided to put these tariffs on countries like South Korea and Japan and Europe, all of who have been major major partners for US, yes, in the economy, but also in security. So the effect small business owner a place called busy Baby. My husband thought it was

a lazy baby. I know it's busy Baby. Busy Baby she started this Entrepreneur of the Year honored by Trump's Small Business Administration.

So it also creates an inequity in the economy where these small businesses that have been just incredibly important to the next big development. I look in Minnesota, Target started as a dry goods store, and you know three Am started up in the slow place in Duluth. I mean, these companies start small lot of the time, and then the small we're just messing around without capitalism is what

he's doing. He's trying to do like a controlled economy from the White House instead of allowing capitalism to unleash the kind of new ideas that we've seen.

to get a line of credit. Because she just made a deal with you reference Target and Walmart to expand the business, and now her house is on the line, not just her business, in her future and looking her kid in the eyes and having him tell them that this is It's so important to highlight those stories and to highlight that example.

But these little companies are just going to be roadkill because they don't have the margins as you just pointed out about this woman leveraging her home, or as I mentioned the soybean farmer, they already lost a bunch of their market to Brazil during the last Trump tariffs, and now they've gone down to like twenty percent of that total soybean market in China, and now they're going to go even less. So I just he inherited an economy that we know there was inflation. We should never embrace

the status quo. There's so much more we need to do. I mentioned permitting, housing, childcare, all these things, but he's now just dragging us the other way. I mean, costs are up, chaos is up, corruption is up, and sadly your four oh one k's are down and the economy's down. And this is just small businesses. I've lost three hundred thousand employees since the beginning of the year. This is just not the direction we should be going.

economy now contracting point three percent in Q one. But I think the most interesting thing and center I'm curious your take on it is this whole notion on the tariffs. The predicate on the tariffs was small businesses don't pay, we don't pay, Walmart doesn't pay. And then out of nowhere, Trump this week says, wait, hold on, eat the tariffs. He says to Walmart, which suggests perhaps someone does pay on the other side of the border, consumers and or businesses.

the international economy. We should be building alliances. We should be the security alliances that we built around standing up for democracy. In Ukraine, we woke up from this slumber our I think our country did, woke up from the pandemic and said, wait a minute, we got to get more secure relationships with some of these other countries, and that also means economic relationships. And he's just taking us backwards.

Hopefully not in Ukraine. I hope that some peace will come out of this that will work for Ukraine, but he's certainly taking us back economically and so and the one other point you raised, Governor was just this destruction thing and it's so hard when you hear this because he does some really bad things, I believe, so that no one will focus on the other things like bright

shiny object. About a week ago or so, on a Friday, Stephen Miller brought up works for Trump in the White House, brought up a habeas corpus, and so I happened to be on a Sunday show after that. So he brings up a habeas corpus and the president has no power under the Constitution to take away people's rights to contest detention. Okay, but he brings us up. He knows that. So then I'm on that Sunday show. So what do I get asked?

On Meet the Press? I get asked about habeas corpus, and I finally was able to say what I've always wanted to say, which is he knows very well the president can't do that under the Constitution. And Senator Barasso, who'd been on before me, on the same show it said, it's not on their agenda. Well it's not. They're not going to spend weeks on this and it's not going to pass anyway. With many conservative commentators are against this.

So I said, he brought it up, so you'd ask me about it right now instead of asking me about tariffs. And I think that's a lot of what they do. And as people who care about our rights and the world, we have to take stands and make clear where we

stand on this. But we cannot let people get fooled by them into spending their time screaming at the TV and they can't even hear you anyway, or screaming at a podcast about things that when what really matters right now is that their budget, which we still have to get to, is going to take thirteen point seven million people off of medicaiding their healthcare, or it's going to raise the costs for twenty million, or that these tariffs are going to mess up our entire economy and the

way we do business around the world and send us pell mell down. And I just think those points is what matters the most people, And what I just judge from this crazy place I work in has the most chance of getting Republicans to say wait a minute, because we already saw them do it on Canada. Two senators bordering Canada, Murkowski and Collins, and then the two of

in Kentucky. You never agree on anything. McConnell and Ran Paul agreed with Tim Kane and me that there was no emergency at the Canadian border, and maybe they did it because of Kentucky Bourbon, but I don't really care why. I appreciate.

in the big beautiful. Bill Trump is on the hill. Trump was just you may have seen him walk in the halls just seconds ago.

billionaire budget. To pay for it. This is what they're looking at, thirteen point seven million people off Medicaid. He may have said that in that session to them, but they just are voting out of the Committee on the Budget that there is no other way, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that you can get to that point with where their cuts are.

in California alone. The impacts across the spectrum, from issues around plant Barrenot, the impacts on our hospitals, not just rural hospitals, but hospital fees we referred to as this MCO tax, all of these other components that they have promoted and are poise to now approve. The devastation is actually outsized, profound and extraordinary. Will also increase the national debt by a minimum of three point three trillion dollars. Talk about saddling the next generation.

on how they do it. If they're at ten percent or wherever they are on the cuts over to state budgets, Texas alone would be like five hundred million dollars, and forty of the fifty states have balanced budgets amendments, so they can't even add this while grocery prices are going up, energy prices up, all of these things. So that's what they're looking at to pay for these billionaire taxes. So if they pass this, which it's still very unclear, but if they do this on a party line Republican vote

in the House comes over to the Senate. We need fifty one votes in the Senate, and the Senators have been very different on this. Some of the Republicans. First of all, they're not going to get every single one. But then you have people like Grassley. I know he's in his nineties, but he said just in the hallway yesterday, I love this. We need a redo, need a redo. That's his nice Midwestern way of saying, no, they're not

going to accept this as the way it is. I think he was referring to the three hundred billion dollars in the snap cuts and some of the other things. The Senate Republicans had suggested one billion it cuts. So there's going to be a lot of this, and this is going to be the moment, I would hope, because Democrats are going to be united against this thing, and we will be doing everything to force votes and push

them on it. But it is a time where people are going to stand up because he is really focused on this, and there's a bunch of Republicans in the Senate, including Josh Holly of all things, who have basically said on medicaid, I'm not going to do this and we're not going to do these kinds of cuts as of other And all it takes is four of them, by the way, four of them to stand up in the House against this. So when people get mad, I don't blame them. They get mad about things and how they are,

and they're mad at Democrats. They got to look at this. It takes only four of them in the House, and four of them in the Senate. If only three of them stand up, then good old JD. Vance can come over and break the tie. But if four of them stand up, then they can't pass it. And so that's what the numbers are in the Senate and in the House.

we'll be at stake for this country. But what I mean this notion of waste, fraud and abuse, This idea that you're not cutting thirteen point seven million people off of Medicaid, that you're just asking them to work. Senator, you're just asking them to reapply every six months, not every year. It's hardly draconian, and it really is about waste, fraud and abuse. How do you counter that narrative? How how do we counter that message of that talking point coming from these folks.

So you've got to look at the population you're dealing with for both the SNAP programs and Medicaid in terms of what you're talking about when you talk about making it harder to apply or creating more red tape in the like. So this is I think Trump has some notion that this isn't very popular. That's why he keeps saying he doesn't want to cut Medicaid. I think that should be the proof point that maybe their argument isn't working.

The other proof point, by the way, when it comes to economics, here is only thirty seven percent that is very close to the magabase. Only thirty seven percent people think he's handling the economy well, a number that I'm hot off the press. Sharing with our caucus today is that when people are asked, well, what do you think we should do to make the budget better and balance you get to a better thing with the deficit, only fourteen percent of them said cut healthcare and cut nutrition

those things. Sixty eight percent said tax the billionaires and the wealthiest more in order to make sure that people aren't hurt by this. So I think they're in a very bad place here, and you've got the midterms coming around the corner. You've got they know this. This is why you're starting to see some of the Republicans stand up. I'm not being a Pollyanna. I'm just looking at the map.

I'm looking at the numbers. And so the key is that despite the despair of what he tries to make, people just feel like nothing is good when they look at politics. Despite all that, you got to look at some of the things that are going on in the States, like your lawsuit on the terraffs. You got to look at the fact that people of our country are going to work every day, working hard despite all this, and looking out for each other and looking out for their neighbors.

That this is still happening in America, no matter what he says, or what he does every morning, or what he posts on social media, and that we as a country have to keep standing up to this because it's either some of it's worked in court, so we fight it in the courts, we fight it in Congress, and this is going to be the big test. Are those four Republicans going to stand up and we're going to make them vote on a bunch of stuff in the meantime.

And then the third thing is our constituents. And that's just my plea to everyone that you've engaged so many people with this podcast. It's incredible that they remember that.

the way he handled that. There are ways, and you know this, to make changes in state or federal government. You've got to look at agencies just like any business person would do. What things, what line of business isn't working. What do I want to change? How do I want to do it? And boy, I want to keep some of my new vigorous employees instead of firing everyone that's just been there less than two years. That may be the dumbest thing. And I want to keep veterinarians at USDA.

I want to keep cancer researchers. I don't want to turn off all these great employees. They are the key to this of making all this work so we can get meta devices approved. And the way they handled everything was just this slash and burn approach, which then turns off other people that they didn't even fire. That makes them want to leave in pretty soon, who's going to be looking at the electric grid? So this is going

to affect the economy with how he's handled this. There are things that they could do and can do to look at this in a rational way. And that's what I think why he became just such a burden on everything because of the way he went up, not necessarily the idea of reform. People don't want to own the status quo. They want to see changes to the government. It's just how he did it and how he mocked

these people. Many of whom have devoted their lives to doing work that Not everyone wants to go out and fight fires all the time, right, Not everyone is putting themselves in the line or looking at these doing the kind of research that you need. They're not going to sit in a lab all day. But there are some devoted Americans that do that every day, and he's making them want to go work somewhere else. So I think that's what happened, and that's why he's back and hopefully gets Tesla back on track.

By the way, Trump made another Orwellian comment today in his press conference around the food cuts, around the Snap cuts, saying it will actually lower the cost of food. Only Trump could actually assert that, as he went on to say something about the cost of eggs, but also there's a part of the three legged stool of what they're also assaulted we didn't bring up, which is on the green energy side, and the fact that we will quite literally, you talk about the future, and I appreciate you brought

it up center four or five times. Wasn't lost on me. You talked about that formula for success. You talked about the research and development. You talked about, you know, the foundations of what make this country great and how we

built the world's largest middle class. It's because we had a formula for success and academic freedom, in investments in science and health and discovery, and entrepreneurial is the ability to get the first round draft choices around the rest of the world, the best and the brightest to come to America, and rules for risk taking but not recklessness. You talk about the importance of permitting reform and addressing aspects of what Ezra Client has referred to as the

abundance agenda, which I completely embraced in Democrats. We need to own that and we need to own up to our own performance. But I want to just briefly talk about something if I'm a senator that is very personal to you and personal to all of us, but more personal to you because I've been struck by your own history with your family, your own personal health obviously now President Biden's health, and it's so topical this week. I saw you on the Sunday shows, and I don't want

to necessarily get to the past per se. We're gonna have plenty of time, and on this podcast we'll talk a lot more about the past, but in relationship to the present and the future, just your relationship with President Biden and his relationship to this moment as it relates to this advanced prostate cancer right.

and also some of the work on cancer. And I remember President Biden was Vice president at the time, standing by Obama's side when he signed that bill into law. That research at NIH and the like has continued with bipartisan support for eleven years in a row, increasing research and now, as you know, a lot of the works in your state, some of it's in mind with the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, and just kind of the incredible moment we're at. We've mapped the human genome.

Now we're moving into personalized medicine and the use of AI, if harnessed and put the right rules in place, is going to take our country to this level of leadership. But to do it, you need, yes, some rules in place. And when Elon Moss says that there should be some rules on an AI, maybe we should listen to them. Secondly,

and Congress needs to act. Secondly, we need to keep supporting this research and the fact that these attacks on these universities, and I'm so glad they're joining forces now because that's one thing all people listen to your podcasts have got to think about when you join forces and you're not alone being attacked. It's worked better for journalists,

for law firms, you name it. So that idea that we could continue this research at this moment and get continue to get in the workers that can do the research. With legal immigration reform and the like to augment the people we have heard that to me is our golden moment into a sun California sunshine thing where we can

really go to this next level of our economy. And that's one of the saddest things about what's going on when I've heard in your own state and in mind about research projects that could be brought to places like Australia, because they just they don't know if they're going to have the certainty of doing them here right at this moment where this technology and know how is reaching this pinnacle where America has like kind of our next great

breakthroughs with rare diseases which we never thought were possible to solve. And in my case, yes, the breast cancer that gets like they detect it. You have a simple epectomy, you've got radiation in five days, and you don't miss a vote, and you literally get back on a commercial flight or back for that vote and never miss anything. I don't say that's perfect for most people, but what I say is that these advancements has allowed our economy to function and been a leader, and we don't want

to move back on that. And I know that was something President Biden cared about. I know something you're voted too. But the point is is that Trump, we still could go in the right direction, but he's got to stop this assault on the things that are literally the innovation that's key to America's economy. We want to be a country that makes up, invents things and exports to the World Center.

that you think we should be doing more of right now in order to get back where I think the American people, the majority of them, I believe, want us to be.

have got to have our own agenda. That's first thing. The second thing is we shouldn't just go where it's comfortable. We should go where it's uncomfortable. You know, I visit all eighty seven counties in my state every single year. Just came back from a nineteen county tour in rural Minnesota and go to other parts of the country as

well that are more rural. I just think listening to people because they're on the first line that's getting attacked by these tariffs and the light and making sure that we have an agenda that works for them. The third thing, bring down costs. Bring down costs, bring down costs. That's going to mean more housing and getting through some of this permitting muck, and that's part of the whole abundance.

As reclient agenda childcare, there's incredible public private partnerships that we could engage in bringing down health care costs, being willing to look at that in a different way, take on these pharmaceutical prices. I've let that bail. And then just remembering that there's more that unites us that divides us, and trying through all of this muck to remember these hard working Americans. Sure saught with your firefighters and their grit and with all the people in your state, and

we see it all over the country. To have that motivate us every day, and that way, you kind of make what he's doing small, because you're going to be bigger than that. And speaking of which, I have to go to our democratic lunch. I wish, I bet you wish you could take the podcast in there. Yeah, but they all have to.