May 18, 2023 • 36 mins
Senator Amy Klobuchar believes that a certain amount of optimism is essential in overcoming obstacles, “Whether it’s through an illness, or whether it’s through trying to get a bill through congress.” And she’s had more than her share of experience with both. On this episode of Next Question, Katie and Senator Klobuchar talk about her getting-things-done mindset, and how it found its way into the pages of her new book, The Joy of Politics: Surviving Cancer, a Pandemic, a Campaign, an Insurrection, and Life’s Other Unexpected Curveballs. While the Senator has been through a lot the past few years, she’s well aware that she’s not alone. Now, she’s ready to rejoice in the comeback.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and this is next question.
You know, the first time many Americans got a glimpse
of Senator Amy Klobachar's no nonsense confidence in action was
February twenty twenty at the Democratic presidential primary debate in
New Hampshire.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
When we were in the last debate, Mayor, you basically
mocked the one hundred years of experience on the stage.
And what do I see on this stage? I see
Elizabeth Work starting the consumer.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This is Senator Klobachar taking a then thirty eight year
old Pete Buddha judge to task on something he'd said
at the presidential debate in Iowa just weeks before.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Sanders Work working to get the Veterans Bill passed across
the aisle. And I see what I've done, which is
to negotiate three farm bells and be someone that actually
had major provisions put in those bills. So what you
can dismiss committee hearings. I think this experience works. And
I have not denigrated your experience as a local official.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I have been one, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I just think you should respect our experience when you
look at how you evaluate someone who can get things done.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
If you, Senator for to mayor, I'll give you a
chance to respond. And Amy Klobachar knows a thing or
two about getting things done. She was the first woman
elected to the US Senate from Minnesota, where since two
thousand and seven she has served on dozens of committees,
past major bipartisan legislation and fought hard for universal healthcare,
(01:35):
strong new environmental policies, gun control, and the regulation of
big tech. But over the course of the pandemic, Senator
Clobchar was faced with some very personal challenges, and through
all of it she was inspired to write a book
in her spare time. I guess it's called The Joy
of Politics, Surviving cancer, a campaign, a pandemic, an insurrection,
(01:58):
and life's other expected curveballs. In it, she digs deep
into a well of resilience she didn't know she had,
and she finds up all things joy, I mean, really joy.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I spend a lot of this book answering that question
about what is the joy. There is joy in perseverance,
whether it's through an illness or whether it's through trying
to get a bill through Congress.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Senator Klobachar and I had a wide ranging conversation we
even got to geek out on policy, which is something
both of us love, including a fascinating dive into immigration reform.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So we're in a crisis, and no great nation has
ever expanded that I know of, into even greater nation
with a shrinking workforce. We can try to be the
first experiment, but I'd rather not do that.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
So how do you do that?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But my first question to her was, how on earth
did you have time to write this book? Way? How
are you right?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
This is what I did?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I know?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
How are you doing? I how are you? Did you
have fun writing?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I wondered, how did you have time to do this?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I just do it late at night and weekends, you
know so I always thought every time you're quarantined for COVID.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So anyway, I enjoyed writing it.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So given the state of the country, the state of
the world, the personal shit excuse me, that you have
been through in the last couple of years, how in
the world could you write a book called The Joy
of Politics?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Good question, and it is not a sarcastic title. It
is real And for me, I first look at what
America's been through, the pandemic, the isolation, of all that,
people have lost loved ones, they've lost their grandmas and grandpa's,
people have had to change their jobs or lose jobs.
There is the political divide, there's the violence that we're seeing.
(03:58):
And through all of it, yes, we can lament the setbacks.
And I go through my own from you know, not
winning the presidential campaign to losing my dad with leid
onset Alzheimer's and being diagnosed with breast cancer, something I
know you can relate to, and all of this happening and.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Husband deal with the serious in COVID.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So we're now that is that's lamenting those setbacks, and
it's important to do and realize what you've been through,
but it is equally important to rejoice in the comebacks,
to talk about how we get through things and how
we get on the other side and the joy. And
for me, it's joy in getting things done, joy in
(04:40):
stepping back, as I'm sure you did when you got
that breast cancer diagnosis or when you lost your husband.
You do step back and you have this gratefulness for
things that happen to you every day, total strangers helping
you out. So that's part of the joy as well.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Have you always been a glass half full person.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yes, or I wouldn't have decided to run for president today, right,
I haven't There the story of going to talk to
Barack Obama and he looked super cool in his leather jacket.
He was meeting with a number of the candidates. Didn't
really endorse anyone, but it was one of the best
meetings I had. I went over my chances and then
in that Barack Obama understated way it goes well. When
(05:23):
I was running, most people put it less than fifty
percent that I was going to win in the Democratic primary,
and there were others that put it even less. And
then he went on to give me advice of just
taking each day at a time, having a goal. If
you don't have a north star purpose, why do it?
So that conversation with him was really actually quite inspiring
(05:45):
for me, because you when you go into these things,
you know your chances are not great, but then you remember,
you know, the winner of some of these last years,
I think Kentucky Derby was like one out of eighty odds,
so you think it can happen.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You know You've also found a lot of inspiration, I know,
Senator from your fellow Senator the late Paul Wellstone, who
went to my high school in Arlington. Really oh right.
He is part of the Yorktown Wall of Fame, of
which I am on as well, so we share this wall.
He was an extraordinary man who died way too young
(06:25):
in that prime crash. Tell me about your relationship with
him and how he has inspired your attitudes.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Sure so, no one ever thought he was going to win.
He was a college professor. He went around in this
green bus kind of ahead of his time, I would say,
in focusing on economic justice and environmental issues. Yes, and it's
kind of like the little guy. And he would talk
(06:55):
about how we don't need another Rockefeller. I'm for the
little fella. And he had this buoyancy about him and joy,
and he taught me so much when he then surprisingly
comes from behind wins the Senate races in the Senate,
and I remember learning so much from him. For one thing,
he taught me how to campaign on city buses.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
We would get on.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
A bus and we would meet everyone on the bus.
We go down what is called the Nickelet Mall, the
in Minneapolis, and we would get to the end and
we go buy everyone. Then we get off the bus
and we just get a ticket and go on the
other way. So the joy story about him, he had
gone to the Senate floor and he had done lost
big time some amendment and he'd made this passionate speech
(07:40):
in his you know, five foot six frame, and he'd
like and then he just lost. And he got back
to the office and everyone had their heads down. They'd
been watching it on the Senate TV.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
They knew what happened.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And he walked in and it looks around at all
of them, and it would some I would say, self
reckoned ignition about the humor of this, because he.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Was so mad, and he goes, what's going on in
this room? Where is the joy? What happened to the joy?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And then there's that joy of getting things done and knowing,
like after working for years to pass a bill to
bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals, that it finally happened,
My bill finally got passed into law last summer. Or
it's the joy of just being part of something bigger
than yourself. That's what John McCain would always tell me.
(08:32):
In fact, when I visited him when he was dying
in Sidona, I tell the story, and he was still
irascible and hilarious, and at the very end of it,
when he can't talk, he points to some words that
he had written, and the words where there's nothing in
life more liberating than fighting for a cause larger than yourself.
And I think that's something we all have to remember
(08:53):
right now. So as people gather again, it is exhilarating
to go to events. It's also can be a scary thing,
but it's also a good thing because the only way
we're going to go back to having civic discussions of
views and differing views is if we actually talk to
each other again.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
I know that's so true. At the same time, you know,
I have to say I'm a pretty optimistic person and
I would like to see people talk who disagree on issues.
But as you know, and as you write about, we
have created our own ecosystems based on our political beliefs.
(09:32):
I think bridging this divide and reducing polarization is the
biggest existential threat our country faces. So I mean, it's
great to be optimistic and think we can talk to
one another, but it's not happening on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, so, Chris Som what you've said is just righteous,
But to me. Courage isn't just standing by yourself giving
some speech, yelling at everyone. Courage is whether or not
you're willing to stand next to someone you don't always
agree with for the betterment of this country. And in
this book, I actually recount how things have happened, and
(10:13):
it's not pretty. And I am never going to pretend
that this book will stop all the anger in our politics.
But when you look at what we've been through, the pandemic,
the aftermath with the economy, through all of that, some
incredible things happened last year, many of them bipartisan. So
after years of working on infrastructure and why you know,
(10:35):
they have high speed broadband next of spewing volcanoes in
Iceland and we don't have it in Lanesboro, Minnesota, you
do start wondering, maybe we can do better. And so
this infrastructure bill that was a product of a number
of Senators actually working together, including Center Portman and Center
Cinema and so many others. We got that passed. Then
(10:59):
you fast forward the gun safety bill. As we know
from the events of this last months, from what we
saw happen in Kentucky to Nashville to what just happened
in Texas that our work is so far not done.
There is so much more has to be done. But
finally a group took on the NRI and did something
about background checks and something about mental health funding. Senator
(11:24):
Cornyn and I, in the middle of the pandemic, joined
forces to save our stages, the biggest investment in the
arts in the history of America, and we enlisted everyone
from Pittbull to the Fargo Theater to help us get senators.
And before you knew it, we had Mitch McConnell on
the bill and Chuck Schumer on the bill and we
were able to move it. So those are legislative examples
(11:47):
of that. But time and time again in the book,
I recount how people Roy Blunt and I the insurrection
that was in our hands.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We were the ones that had to make that walk
with Vice President Pi over the broken glass, passed the
pillars filled with vulgarities, to finish the job and make
sure that democracy prevailed. We were the ones that had
to do the investigation of the security failures at the Capitol,
and then ultimately the ones who made sure when everyone
(12:17):
wanted to put the inauguration in a bunker, and many
did that. We stood up and said, no, we're going
to take back that platform that those insurrectionists tried to
strip down, and we're going to have people of both parties,
everyone from George Bush and Dan Quayle to Barack Obama
and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton on that platform to
show that America peacefully passes on the torch of power.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
That was bipartisan.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And so I don't think it's dead, and I certainly
think the American people don't think democracy is withering on
a vine when they turn out in record numbers to
defeat election deniers, which was a real I would say,
shot in the arm for those that believe in democracy,
and that just in the last election.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
When we come back, you'll hear how the demanding life
of a US senator doesn't stop even after a difficult diagnosis.
We're back with Senator Amy Klobuchar. Isn't it shocking when
(13:25):
you hear that sixty percent of Republicans still believe the
election was not fair? I mean it, you know, I
hear you, and I think eighty seven percent of Americans
consider themselves centrists or moderate and you have these extreme
factions on either side. But Wow, that number is shocking
to me. And yes, ultimately the election deniers didn't win,
(13:49):
but that view is still so prominent out in the
United States of America despite all evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Well, Ronald Trump's shadow is still out there. He is
still a force to be reckoned with within their party.
But when you look again at the actual voting of
Americans in this last midterm, people were horrified Independence turned
out big time and actually voted democratic. I think Hakeem
Jeffries calls them team Normal, Team America.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
And I want to get that t shirt Team Normal.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
There you go, And they were making a sensible case
about our democracy.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So that's I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I know there's polls all over the place and like,
including the one you just cited, but I just can't
help but looking at the actual elections, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
What happens in the end, America.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
They may be understandably grumbling about a politician or not
like a certain position or what's been happening, But in
the end, when faced with do I want to have
someone that actually is out there fomenting an insurrection or
fomenting divides, or do I want someone that sees the hope,
that wants to get things done that wants to work
(15:00):
across the aisle, many of them tend to go to
that second candidate.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I can't help but ask you about gun violence, something
that I care deeply about, and I've been pretty outspoken
for years now, just because I couldn't understand after all
those first graders were mowed down in Sandy Hook and
the fact that I think at the time the vast
majority of Americans favored sensible gun laws, and seventy four
(15:28):
percent of the NRA actually favors sensible gun laws. Yeah,
so let's talk about the assault weapons ban, because I
know that Congress as it stands today, with the Republican
majority in the House, could never pass another assault weapons ban.
But for crying out loud, what is the argument against it?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, I am from a strong hunting state. It's the
way the quality of life in Minnesota. And I always
look at these proposals and say, would this hurt my
uncle Dick in his deer stand. My uncle Dick loved hunting,
And the answer is no, they don't need AR fifteen,
they don't need assault weapons. So then you go to
your next question, could it practically do anything if we
(16:14):
banned the purchase of these assault weapons.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
And my answer is yes. And let me give you
some examples of this.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
When you look at the two shootings in Uvalde, Texas
or in Buffalo, when you look at those, those were
both eighteen year olds who were waiting to turn eighteen
and then bought an assault weapon on the internet twenty
five years ago or how many years ago we had
that assault weapon nine and ninety four. People weren't doing
(16:41):
things like that. So even Center Manson has favored banning
the future purchase of assault weapon bans for eighteen to
twenty one year olds, you know, So you look at that,
So that's one thing you can do, and then after
you ban them, you could do all kinds of things
with gun buybacks. There's just no reason we have to
accept this as it is. So I just I go
(17:03):
back to the fact that political movements start with individuals
and what you've seen in Nashville with people pushing back
when those legislators were basically pushed out and expelled from
the legislature, and then their constituents said no way, and
it became a national issue. No one thought that in
(17:24):
the state of Kansas after the Dobbs decision came out,
and Roe V. Wade was pushed out that in this
middle of the prairie, that all these people would turn
out and say no, we want our reproductive rights in
more numbers than even had voted in the mid term before.
That's what happened in Kansas, so people turn out to vote.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Let me talk about another issue that I cared deeply about.
I wonder if you had the same experience. You and
I were both diagnosed with breast cancer. We were very
lucky because you were stage one. I was just I
was an apartment unit when I frustrated, and we both
have lumpectomies and radiation. And I just want to ask
(18:09):
you about our healthcare system, Senator, because I couldn't help
but think I am so lucky. I have the best healthcare.
I live in New York City, I have the best doctors.
I have good health insurance. And you know, when you
think that black women have a forty percent higher mortality
rate than white women from breast cancer, that so many
(18:33):
women can't afford or don't have access to preventative screening
for all kinds of cancer, is our healthcare system as
screwed up as I think it is?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I think it has a lot of problems that need
to be fixed, and some of this is pharmaceutical crisis,
which does affect everyone. So if you have less money
and not as good a plan, it affects you even more.
If you like someone in Minnesota, kid was on our
healthcare because the Affordable Care Act guaranteed that till twenty six.
(19:07):
He turns twenty six, he's diabetic, starts rationing his insulin,
which should have never been that expensive, and gets the
numbers wrong and died. That mom came out to Washington
as my guest to the State of the Union to
make that point.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So that's part of it.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
And you have seen major advancements on this in terms
of finally pushing medicare and negotiation because the prices were
locked in double what they are in so many countries.
We have the most expensive drugs of any industrialized nation,
yet our taxpayers are the ones that funded so much
of the research. So I would start with that it's
a total outrage, and that insurance company.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
That's what I was going to get to next.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So we've finally done something on emergency medical bills so
they can't just shock you in their amounts that there's
limits on it, but there is more we should be
doing in terms of transparency about how much things really cost,
and looking at expanding medicare to go down to possibly
fifty five. Those kinds of things would be a good step.
(20:09):
And that's one of the bills that I favor.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Did the Affordable Care Act help?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
And I don't know, it just doesn't feel it feels
like we've gone backwards.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, the Affordable Care Act has made a major difference
for people. Millions and millions and millions and more people
got healthcare. There's absolutely no doubt about it. And if
we're talking about breast cancer, millions of women now had
access to that kind of screening that wasn't available to
them before. That's a big, big deal. Trying to focus
(20:43):
and use our knowledge of medicine to get those people
tested more so that they have a chance to catch
it early, which we all know catching it early is
a key part of this. And yes, in my case,
like yours, during the pandemic, I maybe wasn't quite as
up to date on everything I was supposed to do,
and I had waited too long. And when they first
(21:05):
told me, oh, we just did this mammogram and it
looks like there's some problems here. I said, oh, I'm
sure it's fine. I promise you need to get this
checked again right away, right away. And I'm like, yeah,
but and I still remember the feeling as I took
off that hospital gown, put on my suit, put my
lipstick on, and said, I am ready to go out
(21:26):
and do my press conference on vaccines.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
That's what I did. I just go, I promise.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Well, Luckily a week later I did go back, and
that was when I found out that I had this
stage one A cancer and it got the call in
Washington and had to go into the Senate Chamber and vote.
And I think then the experience and your experience gets
to be like a lot of people's experiences putting that
story out there as I did in finding Out, as
(21:51):
I discuss in the book, that other people then go
in and get their own exams, which right they're guaranteed
with the Affordable Care Act, by the way. That's the
joy of actually getting a story out that's hard and
not easy, and then other people listen, it resonates and
they take care of themselves. That's a pretty good thing
(22:14):
about using what is a really bad experience for good,
and no one knows that better than you, Katie Kuric.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You know, I think everyone has to shout it from
the mountaintops because too few people are still getting screened
for so many diseases that it really is the difference
between life and death if these cancers are detected early.
And so thank you for being so public about your situation.
(22:43):
It makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yes, And I tried to do it as horrible as
the whole thing is, with some humor of the situation
as well, that you can get through it. Including one
of my best stories was I'm waiting to get what
I thought was a lumpact to me and I'm laying
I've got this target literally drawn on my breast. I'm
wearing those you know, hospital thing over me. And this
(23:06):
woman comes over and says, hey, Senator. She goes, could
I talk to you about Burma. There's some really bad
things happening, and I happen to know a lot about it,
and I go, I go, yes, I know. She goes, yeah,
but it's getting worse here and there's a lot of refugees.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Ten ho minutes, okay, on and on, but I go, look.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I want to help you but I don't on my
phone because I'm going into the surgery and they've taken away.
But I do want to help you. And so now
they're wheeling me away and they put the anesthesian and I.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Know I'm talking about all though she's now left.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
But most people like count sleep. They say, think of
peaceful things. All I'm saying over and over in my head,
so I won't to forget is don't forget Burma.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Don't forget Burma. Don't forget Burma.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Then I wake up hours later and my husband's there
and I look at him and he goes the first
thing I do say, was it a lumpectomy or mess sectomy?
Because I've given them permission to do that, and you
don't know what's going to happen. He goes to his
a lumpectomy, and I'm feeling kind of sick for the anesthesia.
I go, okay, good, Then could you give me my phone?
(24:07):
I got to write the stuff about Burma. And then
he said, well, I guess you're okay. Then, oh, when
you get the call, and then you got to walk
into the Senate to all those people in that room
and they're just like telling you way why aren't you
on this bill? Well, you can't do that. You can't
do that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It does kind of give you a new perspectives on
the things matter.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And I can't tell any of these people about this
because one of them will tell the press and I'll
have no privacy.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I've got to wait.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Tell the story is mine, right, and I can tell
it myself, which I did. And so that's another weird
thing to be in the public light as you are,
and then trying to figure out how you're going to
be able to have your own private thing with your family,
which I felt like, you know, we handled, we know
pretty well.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
When we come back, Amy Klobuchar reveals what you're not
supposed to sneak into a presidential debate, even though a
lot of then do. That's right after this. If you
want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of
the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and
pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up
(25:14):
Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. We're back with
Senator Amy Klobachar. You know I'm so interested in policy.
I could talk to you about policy all day long. Senator,
Can we just touch on what's going on with immigration
(25:34):
real quickly only because it's so time right now tell.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Us with this change in policy that it had been
put in place because of the pandemic Title Title forty two.
We're now through the pandemic. So that changes to solutions here.
One of them is to process people not on the
border but back in places like Guatemala and Honduras where
so many of these asylum seekers in El Salvador and
(26:00):
other places are coming from.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
The other one is to have immigration reform. And I
cannot tell you how much we need this because in
the Northern States we actually are down to in some
cases two three percent unemployment. We don't have enough ag workers,
we don't have enough tourism people, we don't have enough
people in healthcare. There's in especially in some of these
(26:24):
rural states. Its nursing homes are closing down. So how
do you do that legally to make this work and
be able to vet people. You do that with a
more robust legal immigration system, so you're letting people in
with vetting more straightforwardly, so you don't have situations like
we have where we bring people in and it works
(26:45):
with our corn growers or planting or do producers. We
have a ton of people come in America, including my
state like that. Well right now a number of them
are just deciding to go work in Canada. Why we
have a rule in place that their spouse can oh
so work for five years when they are here on
work permits, they have been vetted. But we make it
(27:06):
so hard and so difficult that it's easier to go
work in other countries. We need to make the legal
part of this work better and then we can put
more resources at the border. But to think we're just
going to close off our country and not bring in
immigrants legally, our country was built on immigrants. Immigrants don't
(27:27):
diminish America. They are America.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
And yet immigration is so weaponized, particularly by the far
right in this country, that it seems unlikely that there
will be immigration reform. Do you think it's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I think something is going to have to happen because
of this weird dual problem. You've got problems at the border,
but you also have problems of not having enough legal immigration.
Grover Norquist favored immigration reform because it brought the debt
down in ten years by over one hundred and fifty
billion dollar because people are finally paying into taxes and
things instead of working in the shadows. So some of
(28:05):
this money can be used to figure out what is
real and what's not when processing these cases. And one
of the things that I note in the book is
just that some of these long term issues have just festered,
but in this book I actually have solutions to some
of this, in addition to some very fun stories about
the presidential debates.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Just as we enter a presidential DIBt.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Actually, that's great segue because you talk a lot about
your twenty twenty presidential bid, which fittingly is the senior
Senator of Minnesota was launched in the middle of a blizzard.
As listened. Because it's funny.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Now, we don't let a little snow stop us. We
don't let a little cold stops like, are you guys
even cold?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Tell the troth.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Now, when I said that elected leaders should go not
just where it's comfortable, but also where it's uncomfortable, this
is what I meant as the first woman elected to
the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota to
(29:16):
announce my canadacy for President of United State. Memories Memories
of hoping that no one would freeze. Memories of we
had to start bonfires so that there would be like,
literally no one freezing. It was supposed to be cold,
but it wasn't supposed to snow. And while it was
(29:38):
this beautiful backdrop, there were people that were literally encrusted
in snow. Then out in the crowd was my which
I recount in the book, the woman who has cut
and colored my hair for decades named b and she'd
come out early and she was like, you know, she'd
done my hair right before I went out there, and
(29:59):
she was later told me she was out there praying,
and I said, oh, Bie, you didn't have to go
out there was so nice of being and you know,
I'm going to be fine. We've got this great team.
She goes, no, no, it was that bad intersection of
a blizzard and a haircut, and she goes, you didn't notice,
but I saw some gray coming in on your part,
and I took a bunch of brown stuff and I
(30:19):
sprayed it on there. And I was sitting out in
the crowd, thinking, oh my god, it's going to start
dribbling down her face, which yes, I note him in
a footnote. I note that he needed to be, but
he needed a lot more than that because he wasn't
even in a blizzard like I was. So you know,
that never happened, but it was truly a joyous thing,
(30:41):
and our odds were slim, but it was important for
me to make the case. When I look back at
that speech, it meets the test of time. I was
talking about workforce, I was talking about immigration reform. I
was focused on technology, which many of my opponents were
not talking about the need to put rules of the
road in place when it comes to tech companies. And
(31:04):
it was about bringing our country together, crossing the river
of our divides, and the metaphor of the Mississippi River
running through our country all the way from Minnesota to
Louisiana to New Orleans, the place of our resilience in
that our country was resilient.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
So that was the theme of it.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And we went from there to town halls in Iowa
and casino basements in Nevada and debates and unbelievable events
all over the country. And one of the things that
can happen when you're running for president, especially in a
crowded primary, you can start to hate.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
The people you're running against. Or like them, and I
actually grew to like them more.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I loved the fact that in one night in Miami,
we doubled the number of women ever on either party's
presidential debate stage in one night, and we showed the
world that women who were running from Elizabeth to kom
to me Kearston, that the women look different, they wore
different clothes, they came from different parts of the country,
(32:07):
and here's what's most important, they had different views and
they could debate each other. So that was a cool
thing on its own, But my fondest memories were those
debate stages where just the craziest things happened. The best
of all was in la when I had Bernie was
to my right, which alone was funny. People are scribbling
(32:27):
down their notes and I'm doing it all like you're
writing what you're going to say, Statistics, you want to use, lines,
you want to use. My pen just explodes, and it's
the one they've given us. I turned to Bernie elbowm
I'm like, I need a pen. Now he's using his,
and he takes his pen out. We were never supposed
to bring in pens, but this is the day I
realized all the men could just hide these pens in
(32:49):
their pockets. So he takes out one for himself, gives
me his debate pen. I start using the same one
and it breaks down too. Then I turned to Styre
on my left. He luckily has one his own pen,
gives me. I'm finally able to write the notes, and
I just want to thank those guys because that debate
was one of my best ones.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I can't let you go without turning to twenty twenty
four briefly. Sure, there has been and this is not
a surprise question, Senator, a lot of concern about Joe
Biden's age, and do you think that's a legitimate concern.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I think what the legitimate issue is who is going
to continue moving this country forward? And Joe Biden has
shown that his experience has been a good thing, that
the people he's put in have been fantastic in these
cabinet positions, and that he's moved us out of this pandemic.
He has brought dignity back into the White House. And
(33:46):
I just think in the end, when independence and modern
Republicans look at this, and as you look at Jnald
Trump's support that's growing with the magabase of their party.
They're going to look at this and say, no, we
don't want to go back to that chaos and hate
and divisiveness. And that's how I that's why I'm supporting Joe,
and that's why I think he will win this race.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Can the country survive another Biden Trump election?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Honestly, country survived a lot, and we still don't know
who the candidate is going to be on the other side.
But you believe, don't you that it's probably going to
be Donald Trump right now? If you looked at the
pure numbers, you'd believe that. But there are going to
be a lot of things. As I learned in my
(34:34):
primary campaign, there's a lot of twists and turns that
the road takes on the way there. There really are,
And so many of our candidates who people thought were
the front runner in other elections on both sides of
the aisle, ended up not being the front runner in
the end. So I don't think that's a given at all.
Would you ever run for president again? I am focused
(34:56):
on supporting this president and my work in the send It,
And as you have pointed out by many of your questions,
we have a lot on our plate and a lot
to do, Amy Klovichar, it's so great to talk to you.
Your book is called The Joy of Politics, and it's fun.
It's fun and joyful surviving cancer, a campaign, a pandemic,
(35:18):
an insurrection, and life's other unexpected curveballs, and boy, there
have been plenty of them for you and for the country.
Thank you, Katie, Thanks Ane, It's been great to be
Can I call you Amy?
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yes, that's what most of my constituents call me.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
or want to share your thoughts about how you navigate
this crazy world reach out. You can leave a short
message at six oh nine five point two five to
five oh five, or you can send me a DM
on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next
Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media.
(36:00):
The executive producers are Meet, Katie Couric and Courtney Ltz.
Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Adrianna
Fazzio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer is Matt Russell,
who also composed our theme music. For more information about
today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake
Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app,
(36:22):
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Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and this is next question.
You know, the first time many Americans got a glimpse
of Senator Amy Klobachar's no nonsense confidence in action was
February twenty twenty at the Democratic presidential primary debate in
New Hampshire.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
When we were in the last debate, Mayor, you basically
mocked the one hundred years of experience on the stage.
And what do I see on this stage? I see
Elizabeth Work starting the consumer.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This is Senator Klobachar taking a then thirty eight year
old Pete Buddha judge to task on something he'd said
at the presidential debate in Iowa just weeks before.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Sanders Work working to get the Veterans Bill passed across
the aisle. And I see what I've done, which is
to negotiate three farm bells and be someone that actually
had major provisions put in those bills. So what you
can dismiss committee hearings. I think this experience works. And
I have not denigrated your experience as a local official.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I have been one, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I just think you should respect our experience when you
look at how you evaluate someone who can get things done.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
If you, Senator for to mayor, I'll give you a
chance to respond. And Amy Klobachar knows a thing or
two about getting things done. She was the first woman
elected to the US Senate from Minnesota, where since two
thousand and seven she has served on dozens of committees,
past major bipartisan legislation and fought hard for universal healthcare,
(01:35):
strong new environmental policies, gun control, and the regulation of
big tech. But over the course of the pandemic, Senator
Clobchar was faced with some very personal challenges, and through
all of it she was inspired to write a book
in her spare time. I guess it's called The Joy
of Politics, Surviving cancer, a campaign, a pandemic, an insurrection,
(01:58):
and life's other expected curveballs. In it, she digs deep
into a well of resilience she didn't know she had,
and she finds up all things joy, I mean, really joy.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I spend a lot of this book answering that question
about what is the joy. There is joy in perseverance,
whether it's through an illness or whether it's through trying
to get a bill through Congress.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Senator Klobachar and I had a wide ranging conversation we
even got to geek out on policy, which is something
both of us love, including a fascinating dive into immigration reform.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So we're in a crisis, and no great nation has
ever expanded that I know of, into even greater nation
with a shrinking workforce. We can try to be the
first experiment, but I'd rather not do that.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
So how do you do that?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But my first question to her was, how on earth
did you have time to write this book? Way? How
are you right?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
This is what I did?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I know?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
How are you doing? I how are you? Did you
have fun writing?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I wondered, how did you have time to do this?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I just do it late at night and weekends, you
know so I always thought every time you're quarantined for COVID.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So anyway, I enjoyed writing it.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So given the state of the country, the state of
the world, the personal shit excuse me, that you have
been through in the last couple of years, how in
the world could you write a book called The Joy
of Politics?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Good question, and it is not a sarcastic title. It
is real And for me, I first look at what
America's been through, the pandemic, the isolation, of all that,
people have lost loved ones, they've lost their grandmas and grandpa's,
people have had to change their jobs or lose jobs.
There is the political divide, there's the violence that we're seeing.
(03:58):
And through all of it, yes, we can lament the setbacks.
And I go through my own from you know, not
winning the presidential campaign to losing my dad with leid
onset Alzheimer's and being diagnosed with breast cancer, something I
know you can relate to, and all of this happening and.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Husband deal with the serious in COVID.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So we're now that is that's lamenting those setbacks, and
it's important to do and realize what you've been through,
but it is equally important to rejoice in the comebacks,
to talk about how we get through things and how
we get on the other side and the joy. And
for me, it's joy in getting things done, joy in
(04:40):
stepping back, as I'm sure you did when you got
that breast cancer diagnosis or when you lost your husband.
You do step back and you have this gratefulness for
things that happen to you every day, total strangers helping
you out. So that's part of the joy as well.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Have you always been a glass half full person.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yes, or I wouldn't have decided to run for president today, right,
I haven't There the story of going to talk to
Barack Obama and he looked super cool in his leather jacket.
He was meeting with a number of the candidates. Didn't
really endorse anyone, but it was one of the best
meetings I had. I went over my chances and then
in that Barack Obama understated way it goes well. When
(05:23):
I was running, most people put it less than fifty
percent that I was going to win in the Democratic primary,
and there were others that put it even less. And
then he went on to give me advice of just
taking each day at a time, having a goal. If
you don't have a north star purpose, why do it?
So that conversation with him was really actually quite inspiring
(05:45):
for me, because you when you go into these things,
you know your chances are not great, but then you remember,
you know, the winner of some of these last years,
I think Kentucky Derby was like one out of eighty odds,
so you think it can happen.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You know You've also found a lot of inspiration, I know,
Senator from your fellow Senator the late Paul Wellstone, who
went to my high school in Arlington. Really oh right.
He is part of the Yorktown Wall of Fame, of
which I am on as well, so we share this wall.
He was an extraordinary man who died way too young
(06:25):
in that prime crash. Tell me about your relationship with
him and how he has inspired your attitudes.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Sure so, no one ever thought he was going to win.
He was a college professor. He went around in this
green bus kind of ahead of his time, I would say,
in focusing on economic justice and environmental issues. Yes, and it's
kind of like the little guy. And he would talk
(06:55):
about how we don't need another Rockefeller. I'm for the
little fella. And he had this buoyancy about him and joy,
and he taught me so much when he then surprisingly
comes from behind wins the Senate races in the Senate,
and I remember learning so much from him. For one thing,
he taught me how to campaign on city buses.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
We would get on.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
A bus and we would meet everyone on the bus.
We go down what is called the Nickelet Mall, the
in Minneapolis, and we would get to the end and
we go buy everyone. Then we get off the bus
and we just get a ticket and go on the
other way. So the joy story about him, he had
gone to the Senate floor and he had done lost
big time some amendment and he'd made this passionate speech
(07:40):
in his you know, five foot six frame, and he'd
like and then he just lost. And he got back
to the office and everyone had their heads down. They'd
been watching it on the Senate TV.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
They knew what happened.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
And he walked in and it looks around at all
of them, and it would some I would say, self
reckoned ignition about the humor of this, because he.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Was so mad, and he goes, what's going on in
this room? Where is the joy? What happened to the joy?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And then there's that joy of getting things done and knowing,
like after working for years to pass a bill to
bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals, that it finally happened,
My bill finally got passed into law last summer. Or
it's the joy of just being part of something bigger
than yourself. That's what John McCain would always tell me.
(08:32):
In fact, when I visited him when he was dying
in Sidona, I tell the story, and he was still
irascible and hilarious, and at the very end of it,
when he can't talk, he points to some words that
he had written, and the words where there's nothing in
life more liberating than fighting for a cause larger than yourself.
And I think that's something we all have to remember
(08:53):
right now. So as people gather again, it is exhilarating
to go to events. It's also can be a scary thing,
but it's also a good thing because the only way
we're going to go back to having civic discussions of
views and differing views is if we actually talk to
each other again.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
I know that's so true. At the same time, you know,
I have to say I'm a pretty optimistic person and
I would like to see people talk who disagree on issues.
But as you know, and as you write about, we
have created our own ecosystems based on our political beliefs.
(09:32):
I think bridging this divide and reducing polarization is the
biggest existential threat our country faces. So I mean, it's
great to be optimistic and think we can talk to
one another, but it's not happening on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, so, Chris Som what you've said is just righteous,
But to me. Courage isn't just standing by yourself giving
some speech, yelling at everyone. Courage is whether or not
you're willing to stand next to someone you don't always
agree with for the betterment of this country. And in
this book, I actually recount how things have happened, and
(10:13):
it's not pretty. And I am never going to pretend
that this book will stop all the anger in our politics.
But when you look at what we've been through, the pandemic,
the aftermath with the economy, through all of that, some
incredible things happened last year, many of them bipartisan. So
after years of working on infrastructure and why you know,
(10:35):
they have high speed broadband next of spewing volcanoes in
Iceland and we don't have it in Lanesboro, Minnesota, you
do start wondering, maybe we can do better. And so
this infrastructure bill that was a product of a number
of Senators actually working together, including Center Portman and Center
Cinema and so many others. We got that passed. Then
(10:59):
you fast forward the gun safety bill. As we know
from the events of this last months, from what we
saw happen in Kentucky to Nashville to what just happened
in Texas that our work is so far not done.
There is so much more has to be done. But
finally a group took on the NRI and did something
about background checks and something about mental health funding. Senator
(11:24):
Cornyn and I, in the middle of the pandemic, joined
forces to save our stages, the biggest investment in the
arts in the history of America, and we enlisted everyone
from Pittbull to the Fargo Theater to help us get senators.
And before you knew it, we had Mitch McConnell on
the bill and Chuck Schumer on the bill and we
were able to move it. So those are legislative examples
(11:47):
of that. But time and time again in the book,
I recount how people Roy Blunt and I the insurrection
that was in our hands.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We were the ones that had to make that walk
with Vice President Pi over the broken glass, passed the
pillars filled with vulgarities, to finish the job and make
sure that democracy prevailed. We were the ones that had
to do the investigation of the security failures at the Capitol,
and then ultimately the ones who made sure when everyone
(12:17):
wanted to put the inauguration in a bunker, and many
did that. We stood up and said, no, we're going
to take back that platform that those insurrectionists tried to
strip down, and we're going to have people of both parties,
everyone from George Bush and Dan Quayle to Barack Obama
and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton on that platform to
show that America peacefully passes on the torch of power.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
That was bipartisan.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
And so I don't think it's dead, and I certainly
think the American people don't think democracy is withering on
a vine when they turn out in record numbers to
defeat election deniers, which was a real I would say,
shot in the arm for those that believe in democracy,
and that just in the last election.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
When we come back, you'll hear how the demanding life
of a US senator doesn't stop even after a difficult diagnosis.
We're back with Senator Amy Klobuchar. Isn't it shocking when
(13:25):
you hear that sixty percent of Republicans still believe the
election was not fair? I mean it, you know, I
hear you, and I think eighty seven percent of Americans
consider themselves centrists or moderate and you have these extreme
factions on either side. But Wow, that number is shocking
to me. And yes, ultimately the election deniers didn't win,
(13:49):
but that view is still so prominent out in the
United States of America despite all evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Well, Ronald Trump's shadow is still out there. He is
still a force to be reckoned with within their party.
But when you look again at the actual voting of
Americans in this last midterm, people were horrified Independence turned
out big time and actually voted democratic. I think Hakeem
Jeffries calls them team Normal, Team America.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
And I want to get that t shirt Team Normal.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
There you go, And they were making a sensible case
about our democracy.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So that's I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I know there's polls all over the place and like,
including the one you just cited, but I just can't
help but looking at the actual elections, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
What happens in the end, America.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
They may be understandably grumbling about a politician or not
like a certain position or what's been happening, But in
the end, when faced with do I want to have
someone that actually is out there fomenting an insurrection or
fomenting divides, or do I want someone that sees the hope,
that wants to get things done that wants to work
(15:00):
across the aisle, many of them tend to go to
that second candidate.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I can't help but ask you about gun violence, something
that I care deeply about, and I've been pretty outspoken
for years now, just because I couldn't understand after all
those first graders were mowed down in Sandy Hook and
the fact that I think at the time the vast
majority of Americans favored sensible gun laws, and seventy four
(15:28):
percent of the NRA actually favors sensible gun laws. Yeah,
so let's talk about the assault weapons ban, because I
know that Congress as it stands today, with the Republican
majority in the House, could never pass another assault weapons ban.
But for crying out loud, what is the argument against it?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, I am from a strong hunting state. It's the
way the quality of life in Minnesota. And I always
look at these proposals and say, would this hurt my
uncle Dick in his deer stand. My uncle Dick loved hunting,
And the answer is no, they don't need AR fifteen,
they don't need assault weapons. So then you go to
your next question, could it practically do anything if we
(16:14):
banned the purchase of these assault weapons.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
And my answer is yes. And let me give you
some examples of this.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
When you look at the two shootings in Uvalde, Texas
or in Buffalo, when you look at those, those were
both eighteen year olds who were waiting to turn eighteen
and then bought an assault weapon on the internet twenty
five years ago or how many years ago we had
that assault weapon nine and ninety four. People weren't doing
(16:41):
things like that. So even Center Manson has favored banning
the future purchase of assault weapon bans for eighteen to
twenty one year olds, you know, So you look at that,
So that's one thing you can do, and then after
you ban them, you could do all kinds of things
with gun buybacks. There's just no reason we have to
accept this as it is. So I just I go
(17:03):
back to the fact that political movements start with individuals
and what you've seen in Nashville with people pushing back
when those legislators were basically pushed out and expelled from
the legislature, and then their constituents said no way, and
it became a national issue. No one thought that in
(17:24):
the state of Kansas after the Dobbs decision came out,
and Roe V. Wade was pushed out that in this
middle of the prairie, that all these people would turn
out and say no, we want our reproductive rights in
more numbers than even had voted in the mid term before.
That's what happened in Kansas, so people turn out to vote.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Let me talk about another issue that I cared deeply about.
I wonder if you had the same experience. You and
I were both diagnosed with breast cancer. We were very
lucky because you were stage one. I was just I
was an apartment unit when I frustrated, and we both
have lumpectomies and radiation. And I just want to ask
(18:09):
you about our healthcare system, Senator, because I couldn't help
but think I am so lucky. I have the best healthcare.
I live in New York City, I have the best doctors.
I have good health insurance. And you know, when you
think that black women have a forty percent higher mortality
rate than white women from breast cancer, that so many
(18:33):
women can't afford or don't have access to preventative screening
for all kinds of cancer, is our healthcare system as
screwed up as I think it is?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
I think it has a lot of problems that need
to be fixed, and some of this is pharmaceutical crisis,
which does affect everyone. So if you have less money
and not as good a plan, it affects you even more.
If you like someone in Minnesota, kid was on our
healthcare because the Affordable Care Act guaranteed that till twenty six.
(19:07):
He turns twenty six, he's diabetic, starts rationing his insulin,
which should have never been that expensive, and gets the
numbers wrong and died. That mom came out to Washington
as my guest to the State of the Union to
make that point.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So that's part of it.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
And you have seen major advancements on this in terms
of finally pushing medicare and negotiation because the prices were
locked in double what they are in so many countries.
We have the most expensive drugs of any industrialized nation,
yet our taxpayers are the ones that funded so much
of the research. So I would start with that it's
a total outrage, and that insurance company.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
That's what I was going to get to next.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So we've finally done something on emergency medical bills so
they can't just shock you in their amounts that there's
limits on it, but there is more we should be
doing in terms of transparency about how much things really cost,
and looking at expanding medicare to go down to possibly
fifty five. Those kinds of things would be a good step.
(20:09):
And that's one of the bills that I favor.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Did the Affordable Care Act help?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
And I don't know, it just doesn't feel it feels
like we've gone backwards.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, the Affordable Care Act has made a major difference
for people. Millions and millions and millions and more people
got healthcare. There's absolutely no doubt about it. And if
we're talking about breast cancer, millions of women now had
access to that kind of screening that wasn't available to
them before. That's a big, big deal. Trying to focus
(20:43):
and use our knowledge of medicine to get those people
tested more so that they have a chance to catch
it early, which we all know catching it early is
a key part of this. And yes, in my case,
like yours, during the pandemic, I maybe wasn't quite as
up to date on everything I was supposed to do,
and I had waited too long. And when they first
(21:05):
told me, oh, we just did this mammogram and it
looks like there's some problems here. I said, oh, I'm
sure it's fine. I promise you need to get this
checked again right away, right away. And I'm like, yeah,
but and I still remember the feeling as I took
off that hospital gown, put on my suit, put my
lipstick on, and said, I am ready to go out
(21:26):
and do my press conference on vaccines.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
That's what I did. I just go, I promise.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Well, Luckily a week later I did go back, and
that was when I found out that I had this
stage one A cancer and it got the call in
Washington and had to go into the Senate Chamber and vote.
And I think then the experience and your experience gets
to be like a lot of people's experiences putting that
story out there as I did in finding Out, as
(21:51):
I discuss in the book, that other people then go
in and get their own exams, which right they're guaranteed
with the Affordable Care Act, by the way. That's the
joy of actually getting a story out that's hard and
not easy, and then other people listen, it resonates and
they take care of themselves. That's a pretty good thing
(22:14):
about using what is a really bad experience for good,
and no one knows that better than you, Katie Kuric.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You know, I think everyone has to shout it from
the mountaintops because too few people are still getting screened
for so many diseases that it really is the difference
between life and death if these cancers are detected early.
And so thank you for being so public about your situation.
(22:43):
It makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yes, And I tried to do it as horrible as
the whole thing is, with some humor of the situation
as well, that you can get through it. Including one
of my best stories was I'm waiting to get what
I thought was a lumpact to me and I'm laying
I've got this target literally drawn on my breast. I'm
wearing those you know, hospital thing over me. And this
(23:06):
woman comes over and says, hey, Senator. She goes, could
I talk to you about Burma. There's some really bad
things happening, and I happen to know a lot about it,
and I go, I go, yes, I know. She goes, yeah,
but it's getting worse here and there's a lot of refugees.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Ten ho minutes, okay, on and on, but I go, look.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I want to help you but I don't on my
phone because I'm going into the surgery and they've taken away.
But I do want to help you. And so now
they're wheeling me away and they put the anesthesian and I.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Know I'm talking about all though she's now left.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
But most people like count sleep. They say, think of
peaceful things. All I'm saying over and over in my head,
so I won't to forget is don't forget Burma.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Don't forget Burma. Don't forget Burma.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Then I wake up hours later and my husband's there
and I look at him and he goes the first
thing I do say, was it a lumpectomy or mess sectomy?
Because I've given them permission to do that, and you
don't know what's going to happen. He goes to his
a lumpectomy, and I'm feeling kind of sick for the anesthesia.
I go, okay, good, Then could you give me my phone?
(24:07):
I got to write the stuff about Burma. And then
he said, well, I guess you're okay. Then, oh, when
you get the call, and then you got to walk
into the Senate to all those people in that room
and they're just like telling you way why aren't you
on this bill? Well, you can't do that. You can't
do that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It does kind of give you a new perspectives on
the things matter.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
And I can't tell any of these people about this
because one of them will tell the press and I'll
have no privacy.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I've got to wait.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Tell the story is mine, right, and I can tell
it myself, which I did. And so that's another weird
thing to be in the public light as you are,
and then trying to figure out how you're going to
be able to have your own private thing with your family,
which I felt like, you know, we handled, we know
pretty well.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
When we come back, Amy Klobuchar reveals what you're not
supposed to sneak into a presidential debate, even though a
lot of then do. That's right after this. If you
want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of
the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and
pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up
(25:14):
Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. We're back with
Senator Amy Klobachar. You know I'm so interested in policy.
I could talk to you about policy all day long. Senator,
Can we just touch on what's going on with immigration
(25:34):
real quickly only because it's so time right now tell.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Us with this change in policy that it had been
put in place because of the pandemic Title Title forty two.
We're now through the pandemic. So that changes to solutions here.
One of them is to process people not on the
border but back in places like Guatemala and Honduras where
so many of these asylum seekers in El Salvador and
(26:00):
other places are coming from.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
The other one is to have immigration reform. And I
cannot tell you how much we need this because in
the Northern States we actually are down to in some
cases two three percent unemployment. We don't have enough ag workers,
we don't have enough tourism people, we don't have enough
people in healthcare. There's in especially in some of these
(26:24):
rural states. Its nursing homes are closing down. So how
do you do that legally to make this work and
be able to vet people. You do that with a
more robust legal immigration system, so you're letting people in
with vetting more straightforwardly, so you don't have situations like
we have where we bring people in and it works
(26:45):
with our corn growers or planting or do producers. We
have a ton of people come in America, including my
state like that. Well right now a number of them
are just deciding to go work in Canada. Why we
have a rule in place that their spouse can oh
so work for five years when they are here on
work permits, they have been vetted. But we make it
(27:06):
so hard and so difficult that it's easier to go
work in other countries. We need to make the legal
part of this work better and then we can put
more resources at the border. But to think we're just
going to close off our country and not bring in
immigrants legally, our country was built on immigrants. Immigrants don't
(27:27):
diminish America. They are America.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
And yet immigration is so weaponized, particularly by the far
right in this country, that it seems unlikely that there
will be immigration reform. Do you think it's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I think something is going to have to happen because
of this weird dual problem. You've got problems at the border,
but you also have problems of not having enough legal immigration.
Grover Norquist favored immigration reform because it brought the debt
down in ten years by over one hundred and fifty
billion dollar because people are finally paying into taxes and
things instead of working in the shadows. So some of
(28:05):
this money can be used to figure out what is
real and what's not when processing these cases. And one
of the things that I note in the book is
just that some of these long term issues have just festered,
but in this book I actually have solutions to some
of this, in addition to some very fun stories about
the presidential debates.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Just as we enter a presidential DIBt.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Actually, that's great segue because you talk a lot about
your twenty twenty presidential bid, which fittingly is the senior
Senator of Minnesota was launched in the middle of a blizzard.
As listened. Because it's funny.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Now, we don't let a little snow stop us. We
don't let a little cold stops like, are you guys
even cold?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Tell the troth.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Now, when I said that elected leaders should go not
just where it's comfortable, but also where it's uncomfortable, this
is what I meant as the first woman elected to
the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota to
(29:16):
announce my canadacy for President of United State. Memories Memories
of hoping that no one would freeze. Memories of we
had to start bonfires so that there would be like,
literally no one freezing. It was supposed to be cold,
but it wasn't supposed to snow. And while it was
(29:38):
this beautiful backdrop, there were people that were literally encrusted
in snow. Then out in the crowd was my which
I recount in the book, the woman who has cut
and colored my hair for decades named b and she'd
come out early and she was like, you know, she'd
done my hair right before I went out there, and
(29:59):
she was later told me she was out there praying,
and I said, oh, Bie, you didn't have to go
out there was so nice of being and you know,
I'm going to be fine. We've got this great team.
She goes, no, no, it was that bad intersection of
a blizzard and a haircut, and she goes, you didn't notice,
but I saw some gray coming in on your part,
and I took a bunch of brown stuff and I
(30:19):
sprayed it on there. And I was sitting out in
the crowd, thinking, oh my god, it's going to start
dribbling down her face, which yes, I note him in
a footnote. I note that he needed to be, but
he needed a lot more than that because he wasn't
even in a blizzard like I was. So you know,
that never happened, but it was truly a joyous thing,
(30:41):
and our odds were slim, but it was important for
me to make the case. When I look back at
that speech, it meets the test of time. I was
talking about workforce, I was talking about immigration reform. I
was focused on technology, which many of my opponents were
not talking about the need to put rules of the
road in place when it comes to tech companies. And
(31:04):
it was about bringing our country together, crossing the river
of our divides, and the metaphor of the Mississippi River
running through our country all the way from Minnesota to
Louisiana to New Orleans, the place of our resilience in
that our country was resilient.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
So that was the theme of it.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And we went from there to town halls in Iowa
and casino basements in Nevada and debates and unbelievable events
all over the country. And one of the things that
can happen when you're running for president, especially in a
crowded primary, you can start to hate.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
The people you're running against. Or like them, and I
actually grew to like them more.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
I loved the fact that in one night in Miami,
we doubled the number of women ever on either party's
presidential debate stage in one night, and we showed the
world that women who were running from Elizabeth to kom
to me Kearston, that the women look different, they wore
different clothes, they came from different parts of the country,
(32:07):
and here's what's most important, they had different views and
they could debate each other. So that was a cool
thing on its own, But my fondest memories were those
debate stages where just the craziest things happened. The best
of all was in la when I had Bernie was
to my right, which alone was funny. People are scribbling
(32:27):
down their notes and I'm doing it all like you're
writing what you're going to say, Statistics, you want to use, lines,
you want to use. My pen just explodes, and it's
the one they've given us. I turned to Bernie elbowm
I'm like, I need a pen. Now he's using his,
and he takes his pen out. We were never supposed
to bring in pens, but this is the day I
realized all the men could just hide these pens in
(32:49):
their pockets. So he takes out one for himself, gives
me his debate pen. I start using the same one
and it breaks down too. Then I turned to Styre
on my left. He luckily has one his own pen,
gives me. I'm finally able to write the notes, and
I just want to thank those guys because that debate
was one of my best ones.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I can't let you go without turning to twenty twenty
four briefly. Sure, there has been and this is not
a surprise question, Senator, a lot of concern about Joe
Biden's age, and do you think that's a legitimate concern.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I think what the legitimate issue is who is going
to continue moving this country forward? And Joe Biden has
shown that his experience has been a good thing, that
the people he's put in have been fantastic in these
cabinet positions, and that he's moved us out of this pandemic.
He has brought dignity back into the White House. And
(33:46):
I just think in the end, when independence and modern
Republicans look at this, and as you look at Jnald
Trump's support that's growing with the magabase of their party.
They're going to look at this and say, no, we
don't want to go back to that chaos and hate
and divisiveness. And that's how I that's why I'm supporting Joe,
and that's why I think he will win this race.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Can the country survive another Biden Trump election?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Honestly, country survived a lot, and we still don't know
who the candidate is going to be on the other side.
But you believe, don't you that it's probably going to
be Donald Trump right now? If you looked at the
pure numbers, you'd believe that. But there are going to
be a lot of things. As I learned in my
(34:34):
primary campaign, there's a lot of twists and turns that
the road takes on the way there. There really are,
And so many of our candidates who people thought were
the front runner in other elections on both sides of
the aisle, ended up not being the front runner in
the end. So I don't think that's a given at all.
Would you ever run for president again? I am focused
(34:56):
on supporting this president and my work in the send It,
And as you have pointed out by many of your questions,
we have a lot on our plate and a lot
to do, Amy Klovichar, it's so great to talk to you.
Your book is called The Joy of Politics, and it's fun.
It's fun and joyful surviving cancer, a campaign, a pandemic,
(35:18):
an insurrection, and life's other unexpected curveballs, and boy, there
have been plenty of them for you and for the country.
Thank you, Katie, Thanks Ane, It's been great to be
Can I call you Amy?
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yes, that's what most of my constituents call me.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,
or want to share your thoughts about how you navigate
this crazy world reach out. You can leave a short
message at six oh nine five point two five to
five oh five, or you can send me a DM
on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next
Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media.
(36:00):
The executive producers are Meet, Katie Couric and Courtney Ltz.
Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Adrianna
Fazzio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer is Matt Russell,
who also composed our theme music. For more information about
today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake
Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app,
(36:22):
or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also
find me on Instagram and all my social media channels.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Katie Couric
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