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

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This is Gavin Newsom.

And this is Senator Amy Klobuchar.

First of all, I'm really happy that you're here because I want folks to appreciate, Senator Klobuchar, the fact that you are one of the most productive.

You're the face of productivity, a politician that not only gets all relative, but gets things done.

I mean, it is remarkable.

You look at so many people in the Senate and you just, you feel like, you know, it's a club and obviously 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, the Take It Down Act, a bipartisan bill that you and Ted Cruz co-sponsored.

Tell me more about it.

So this came out of, which I know you're familiar with all this, but just what's going on in the internet right now where there's no rules and you've got non-consensual and AI created porn.

And one year, this is FBI stats, there were over 20 suicides of kids.

They are courting a girlfriend or a boyfriend.

They send a photo, and then that photo goes all over their schools, or there's some kind of threat, or you know, asking for money, and they think their life is over, and they actually take their own lives.

So, Senator Cruz 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-consensual images, in 48 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, Governor, I chaired 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.

I love that.

I mean, and so a couple of things just to reflect on.

And I want to go back to the inaugural because people were, I think a lot of folks wondering, why is Senator Klobuchar kicking off the inaugural festivities?

And we'll talk about your unique role in that respect.

But how about just the role of bipartisanship, the role you played and the role, it sounds like the First Lady played, but also Senator Cruz.

Is it, I mean, is this an anomalous?

Is this something to be hopeful about?

Is this one-off?

I mean, what's your sense?

Was there incentives for good behavior?

Have you gotten criticized for working on the other side?

I think, first of all, I've always believed in working with people you don't always agree with, that courage isn't just standing by yourself.

Courage is whether you're you're going to stand next to someone you don't always agree with for the betterment of this country.

And I have done that in the Senate, working with everyone from Josh Hawley on antitrust issues to Chuck Gray on biofuels.

I mean you could just go on.

And however, I do think the president, 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 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's 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 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 librarian.

He's getting these Medicaid cuts.

He's moving us backwards on clean energy.

All these things that I think 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.

Love all that.

And I want to touch on all those things, but let me go back just a little bit to the origin story on how you were able to sort of smooth this bill over.

I love that you said it was at the lunch and it was just engaging on the personal, where the first lady actually followed up, took you,

took very seriously.

your request to engage a few days later.

But let's take us back to that inaugural.

I mean, that's an interesting aside.

But what was the most striking part of that?

You 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, et cetera.

I'm curious, though, what enduring memories do you have around those inaugural facilities?

Can't reveal it all on your podcast.

I have to save some of it.

But, you know, it started out in the White House and I with everyone, with the president at the time, President Biden and Vice President Harris, and then, of course, the Vance's and the Trumps, the Speaker of the House, Senator Schumer, you name it.

So everyone's there.

And then we divide into cars, and this is a tradition.

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 20 minutes.

One day I'll reveal that conversation.

It was quite talkative.

I brought up the fires in California.

Thank you.

I will say that.

That was one of my plans to do because I knew 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, day, the inauguration and the like, and it

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 assaults 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

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.

Gavin, he is from Minnesota, and just a little Hollywood moment.

I liked a 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.

But I did say that.

Regrets.

Regrets.

Yeah.

Secondly, 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 force.

They're usually not all there.

They all RSVP'd when I 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 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, are 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 this isn't.

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 congressmember, member.

That matters and we've got to keep that part of democracy alive and strong.

I love that.

And look, you talk about this notion of co-equal branches of government, popular sovereignty, the rule of law, the best of

Roman Republic and Greek democracy, the founding fathers vision.

being tested, the rule of law, this notion of the constitutional crisis that some have attached, at least as a tagline, to this moment.

What's your over-under?

I mean, where do you think we are on the basis of that speech, this notion of an enduring democracy?

Has

that been vandalized even more acutely than you even imagined 100 plus days ago?

Yes, and it's not like we didn't expect bad things to happen given who some of the nominees were for some of the justice jobs, given that we had seen what he'd done before.

And certainly January 6th, I also was there with President Biden and Roy Blunt when that all happened.

The day of January 6th was, you know, Mike Pence and me and Blunt walking down that pathway to the House, walking over broken glass at 3 in the morning with the last of the electoral ballots, including Californias, 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 recalled 150 million bad products and saved Americans from lead poisoning 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 200 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.

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 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 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 Kondo like plastic things because I decided I was going to reorganize my coffees and teas.

And the stranger comes up and goes 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 works, the citizens standing up, calling, emailing, yelling.

I mean, it has made a difference.

So I just, I, and those quiet voices have just as much.

I love that.

And by the way,

I've been to the container store a few times myself.

And perhaps you've just, I thought I was simply organizing.

So I think it's a deeper, deeper reason.

You may be right.

So one thing we can control, right?

Control the controllables.

But let me go back.

You talked about this.

We sort of challenged, and I appreciate your point of view on this, whether or not we're in a constitutional crisis, the issues around the 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 filed a lawsuit along those lines, a dozen 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, that's it's 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, 30% 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, overstated, understated?

No, and I, it's, it is, to me, the driving problem right now with the economics.

And I want to thank you for bringing that suit and showing such leadership on this front, especially with your major economy, the fourth biggest in the...

I'm glad you and the world, Senator.

I appreciate it.

$4.1 trillion.

We love to brag about that.

But watch India.

They're right behind us.

I worry a little.

We may slip.

So, when you look at the tariffs,

we've always had targeted tariffs.

I've supported some of these for like with iron ore mined up in northern Minnesota.

And when China does illegal steel dumping, it's a huge problem.

And this was something Barack Obama put in.

Trump continued in the first administration, Biden continued.

But now he has put this into across-the-board tariffs involving some of our closest allies, 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.

in, yes, in the economy, but also in security.

So the effect small business owner, a place called Busy baby my husband thought it was lazy baby i know it's busy baby busy baby she started this entrepreneur of the year honored by trump small business administration can't make it up and she can't do her business with these tariffs She doesn't have the phone number of the White House.

She's not like a major CEO that can waltz in there and say, hey, can we get an exemption for our products?

More power to them, okay?

But she doesn't have the ability.

She's not invited by the Treasury Secretary, J.P.

Morgan, to go into the meeting in New York City.

She doesn't know what's going to happen.

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

3M started up in this little place in Duluth.

I mean, these companies start small a lot of the time.

And then the small, we're just messing around with 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.

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And Senator, you know what's most insidious, and I love that you brought her up.

We had the opportunity to visit with her on the podcast.

And she talked about how she was inspired by her.

by her newborn.

And now she has to look him in the eye and say, honey, we may not only lose the business, we may lose our home because she's leveraged her home in the mortgage to get a line of credit because she just made a deal with you referenced 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 him that.

This is, this is, it's so important.

to highlight those stories and to highlight that example.

Yeah, it's like the roadkill in this thing because the bigger companies, I'm also concerned about, honestly, they're a big part of our economy.

We have in Minnesota like 15, 16 Fortune 500 companies, and a lot of them do work overseas and a lot of ag companies and the like.

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 20% 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 401ks are down

and the economy's down.

And this is just small businesses have lost 300,000 employees since the beginning of the year.

This is just not the direction we should be going.

No, I appreciate that.

And I mean, it's been said over and over again, you know, headlines and the economists.

headlines in the Wall Street Journal, the envy of the world, the United States of America economy, despite inflation, was beginning to cool.

The economic output growth, productivity, unemployment for women, African Americans, lowest unemployment in 60 years.

And as you suggest, the economy now contracting 0.3% in Q1.

But I think the most interesting thing, and Senator, 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.

Which is it?

So it is both, but $3,000 a family annually is going to be a tariff tax, a tariff tax, $3,000.

Strollers, 25% have gone up.

So it's like a baby tax, but if you have a baby, but it's also a family tax.

And so everyone's got to realize what's going on here, that consumers will pay, but our businesses will pay as well.

And it just sets us back in the rest of 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 like woke up from this slumber.

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, who works for Trump in the White House, brought up habeas corpus.

And so I happen to be on a Sunday show after that.

So he brings up habeas corpus and the president has no power under the Constitution to take away people's rights to contest detention.

Okay.

But he brings this 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 Barraso, who'd been on before me on the same show, had 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.

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 V 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 13.7 million people off of Medicaid and their health care or it's going to raise the costs for 20 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 to people.

And what we, 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 in Kentucky who never agree on anything.

McConnell and Rand Paul agreed with Tim Kaine 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.

appreciate it.

Let's contextualize.

You talk about our kids.

You talk about this tax cut, a tax increase, excuse me, with the tariffs, which are nothing more than a tax increase on in a regressive tax that hurts low-income

and working and middle-income Americans more than anyone else, but also attacks generationally as it relates to attacking working families in particular and the next generation.

But we have this Build Back, Better, Beautiful, whatever the heck they're calling it, the Big Beautiful Bill.

Trump is on the Hill.

Trump was just, you may have seen him walk in the halls just seconds ago, Senator.

He's out there and he was just out there on press conference saying that, you know, do not, and dare I say, I'll say it, he says he's don't quote unquote f ⁇ around with Medicaid.

Meaning he completely denies what you just suggested, that 13.7 million people may lose their Medicaid.

You suggest, Democrats are suggesting that's not the case.

So this bill is truly a betrayal of the middle class.

There are so many things he could have done right.

He could have increased taxes on billionaires and the biggest corporations.

Even you do a one-point every 10 years, which brings in $150 billion

on corporate tax.

And he could have gotten us to like a middle ground on that.

He didn't do any of that.

Instead, they added more tax cuts for the wealthiest.

And then, to pay for it, that's why we call it the billionaire budget.

To pay for it, this is what they're looking at 13.7 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 in according to the congressional budget office that you can get to that point with where their cuts are

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Senator, just on that point, because I think it's so important, I mean, I bring that up because it's so infuriating.

It's so Orwellian.

It's such an extraordinary statement.

I mean, 3.4, we estimate, just to put it in perspective in California, and

we're going to sort of put out detailed plans or detailed analysis on this tomorrow, but 3.4 million folks will be impacted through our Medi-Cal, our Medicaid, just in California alone.

The impacts across the spectrum from the issues around Planned Parenthood, the impacts on our hospitals, not just rural hospitals, but hospital fees, what we refer to as this MCO tax, all of these other components that they have promoted and are poised to now approve.

The devastation is actually outsized, profound, and extraordinary.

It will also increase the national debt by a minimum of $3.3 trillion.

Talk about saddling the next generation.

So we do tax cuts to people literally who are not even asking for it.

Multi-billionaires, centennial billionaires, not just wealthy corporations that rarely even pay that minimum tax.

But tell me,

sanity is being taxed right now.

What the hell do we do?

What is the Senate going to do?

How can you stop this?

And how do we focus, again, to your point, on not getting distracted by these intentional distractions?

So

we need to fight this in every way.

And I think that, one, it has to pass the House.

We'll see.

They have fights with their hardliners on exactly what you raised for good reasons on the debt.

And then it's, by the way, it's not just the health care cuts, it's the snap cuts.

They want to put that over on your budget and on Minnesota's budget.

I saw that, depending on how they do it, if they're at 10% or wherever they are on the cuts over to state budgets, Texas alone would be like $500 million.

And 40 of the 50 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.

They need 51 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 90s, but he said just in the hallway yesterday, I love this, we need a redo.

We 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 $300 billion in the snap cuts and some of the other things.

The Senate Republicans had suggested $1 billion in 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 Hawley, of all things, who have basically said on Medicaid, I'm not going to do this.

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 J.D.

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.

So, and I look, I appreciate

the point you're making that we still have agency.

We're not bystanders as it relates to this, and we can still save the future.

But that said,

we heard over and over and over again,

today, yesterday, this last week, failure for these guys is not an option.

And of course, Trump showing up today on the Hill, making that point, only reinforces symbolically and substantively what's at stake for the Speaker and ultimately will be at stake for this country.

But what, what, I mean, this notion of waste, fraud, and abuse, this idea that you're not cutting 13.7 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 do we counter that message, that talking point coming from these folks?

So we're happy to work with them on actual waste, fraud, and abuse, always have.

I'm always into looking at reforms and what we can do better but when you look at medicaid half of the people um on in nursing homes are on medicaid okay you've got this population tends to be the vast majority of them are kids they're people with disabilities they're veterans right and they're seniors older people 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 and 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 37%, that is very close to the MAGA base, only 37% people think he's handling the economy well.

A number that 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 know, get to a better thing with the deficit?

Only 14% of them said, cut health care and cut nutrition, those things.

68% 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 math.

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've got to look at some of the things that are going on in the states, like your lawsuit on the terrorist.

You've 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.

I appreciate it.

And I also just appreciate the essential nature of this moment, just focusing on this tax bill and focusing on the tariffs and doing our best over the course of the next few weeks.

Talking about the fact that the Timberwills beat the Lakers and

the Golden State.

We had to do that.

Really?

You had to

get into that.

I mean, there wasn't much time left, but I thought I might raise that.

We made it almost through an entire podcast without that.

I mean, I won't even bring up the last many years.

And then I thought I'd end.

So just let me briefly, in the spirit.

I'm going to go back to this, but for us, it's very serious.

I know

our journey continues.

I got two kids that are still in bed.

They have not recovered.

So I understand, trust me, how serious this stuff is.

I also understand how serious

these, the anxiety, and I just want to get to three quick topics with you.

And I'll just jump right in.

Where the hell is Elon Musk?

What happened to him?

What's your assessment of everything that has happened in the last few weeks?

Fire and fury signifying something, nothing?

Doge?

Trying to get Tesla back on track

and doing his job.

I just was

just the way I was in Wisconsin, by the way, on that Supreme Court

situation there.

And, you know, not with him, with the cheese head.

I was there, and I just saw how people reacted to that.

And they care about their own state and their own judicial system.

They don't like that this billionaire is coming over to Green Bay.

And I think 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 um 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 medical 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 and pretty 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, he gets Tesla back on track.

Yeah, no, and as someone that's invested as a taxpayer, not just as an elected official supporting the growth of the alternative vehicle industry, I appreciate the sentiments about Tesla because of the energy and entrepreneurialism that defines that company, or at least has in the past, and our ability to compete for the future.

You make a point about the issue of snap and the cuts to food and food security.

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 assaulting 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.

It wasn't lost on me.

You talked about that formula for success.

You talked about the research and development.

You talked talked about 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 and in investments in science and health and discovery and entrepreneurialism, 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 Klein has referred to as the abundance agenda, which I completely embrace.

And 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 may, 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 going to 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, exactly.

So, when you think about it, it was the cancer moonshot when you go back to Biden after he lost his son, who I know you knew, and him.

and it

was something that of course changed his whole life and I was there when President Obama signed that bill because I had some things in there on eating disorders other things that we passed that we got in that in that bill and also some of the work on cancer and I remember President Biden, who 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 11 years in a row, increasing research.

And now, as you know, a lot of the work's in your state, some of it's in mine 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 Musk says that there should be some rules on AI, maybe we should listen to him.

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 who 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 continue to get in the workers that can do the research with legal immigration reform and the like to augment the people we have here.

That, to me, is our golden moment into

a 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 mine 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 it's something you're devoted to.

But the point is, is that

Trump's 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 america's economy we want to be a country that makes stuff invents things and exports to the world senator just in closing do you you know and i appreciate i think you know this notion of an economic vision a journey that everyone can be on together and they see they feel seen and included in in that um is critical for the democrats and and our comeback and not just as it relates to the midterms but even beyond where are you on sort of the spectrum of reflecting um on our party is, where it was, where we are today, and where we're going, and just sort of three or four things 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?

Yeah, I think we can't be stuck in the status quo of the past.

And just because Trump is going on this all-out assault doesn't mean that our answer is, no, we like everything the way it was.

That's not where the American people are.

That's not where we should be.

So that's the first thing.

In addition to focusing on the economic mistakes he's making and the assault on people's

basically their right to pursue opportunities by making it harder and harder for them and small businesses, we have got to have our own agenda.

That's the 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 87 counties in my state every single year.

Just came back from a 19-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 like, 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 Ezra Klein agenda.

Child care, 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 led that bill.

And then just remembering that there's more that unites us, that divides us, and trying through all of this muck to remember these hardworking Americans.

And you sure saw it 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 bet you wish you could take the podcast in there.

But they all have to say.

We're getting a little town hall.

I love it.

A little, oh, yeah.

People have

to be able to do that.

We wish you all the luck in this remarkable moment, but I'm grateful you took these moments to share your thoughts, your wisdom, your insight.

And congratulations again on getting that bill to the president's desk and signed.

And thank you for

all you do for all of us every single day in ways seen and unseen.

Senator Klobuchar, thanks for joining us.

Thanks.

It was great being on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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Hi, I'm Morgan Sung, host of Close All Tabs from KQED, where every week we reveal how the online world collides with everyday life there was the six-foot cartoon otter who came out from behind a curtain it actually really matters that driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn't should i be telling this thing all about my love life i think we will see a twitch stream or president maybe within our lifetimes you can find close all tabs wherever you listen to podcasts

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