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Amy Klobuchar

American lawyer and politician (born 1960)

Amy Jean Klobuchar (born May 25, 1960) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Minnesota since 2007. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Minnesota's affiliate of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the Hennepin County attorney. She was a candidate in the 2020 presidential elections.

Amy Klobuchar in 2007

Quotes

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2006

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  • I believe that we need to bring a significant number of our troops home. That’s the only that we send a clear message to the government of Iraq that we’re serious about this and that they need to start taking responsibility for their own country.... I am one who does not believe that we can bring all the troops home tomorrow. The situation is too precarious. But I believe we need to start this year, in the very near future, drawing down the troops.
  • So what's the cost of the culture of corruption? Of people giving breaks to the oil companies and giving giveaways and Christmas presents to the drug companies and the insurance companies? The cost is $90 billion a year. There you go. Quantifiable.

2009

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  • Ted Kennedy’s wit and stories, his passion for a cause and his country, and his love for the Senate just made you want to go to work every day. I had the privilege to serve with Ted Kennedy in the Senate for just two years. He was a mentor to so many of us just starting out, not in the traditional "this is how you get it done" way, but instead as an inspiration. He never gave up and had a fiery zest for the legislative battles that was always tempered by a bipartisan pragmatism. He was incredibly strong and effective and had the deep respect of everyone that worked with him.

2019

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I have won every place, every race — every time I've won.
  • At a time when we must heal the heart of our democracy and renew our commitment to the common good, I stand before you as the granddaughter of an iron ore miner, as the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman, as the first woman elected to the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota, to announce my candidacy for president of the United States.
Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami, Florida (26 June 2019)
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Transcript, NBC News (25 February 2020)

  • Well, first, the economy. We know that not everyone is sharing in this prosperity. And Donald Trump just sits in the White House and gloats about what's going on, when you have so many people that are having trouble affording college and having trouble affording their premiums. So I do get concerned about paying for college for rich kids. I do. But I think my plan is a good one. And my plan would be to, first of all, make community college free and make sure that everyone else besides that top percentile gets help with their education. My own dad and my sister got their first degrees with community college. There's many paths to success, as well as certifications. Secondly, I'd used Pell grants. I'd double them from $6,000 to $12,000 a year and expand it to the number of families that get covered, to families that make up to $100,000. And then the third thing I would do is make it easier for students to pay off their student loans. Because I can tell you this: If billionaires can pay off their yachts, students should be able to pay off their student loans.
  • Well, I think it's a bold approach. It's something that Barack Obama wanted to do when we were working on the Affordable Care Act. And that is a public option. I am just simply concerned about kicking half of America off of their health insurance in four years, which is exactly what this bill says. So let me go on beyond that. There is a much bigger issue in addition to that, and that is pharmaceuticals. The president literally went on TV, on Fox, and said that people's heads would spin when they see how much he would bring down pharmaceutical prices. Instead, 2,500 drugs have gone up in double-digits since he came into office. Instead, he gave $100 billion in giveaways to the pharma companies. For the rest of us, for the rest of America, that's what we call at home all foam and no beer. We got nothing out of it. And so my proposal is to do something about pharma, to take them on, to allow negotiation under Medicare, to bring in less expensive drugs from other countries. And pharma thinks they own Washington? Well, they don't own me.
  • I just want to say, there's three women up here that have fought pretty hard for a woman's right to choose. I'll start with that. And then I just want to make very clear, I think we share the goal of universal health care. And the idea I put out there, the public option, which the governor was just talking about, this idea is that you use Medicare or Medicaid without any insurance companies involved, you can do it either way. And the estimates are 13 million people would see a reduction in their premiums, 12 more million people would get covered. So I think it is a beginning and the way you start and the way you move to universal health care.
  • Immigrants, they do not diminish America. They are America. And I am happy to look at his proposal. But I do think you want to make sure that you have provisions in place that allow you to go after traffickers and allow you to go after people who are violating the law. What I really think we need to step back and talk about is the economic imperative here. And that is that 70 of our Fortune 500 companies are headed by people that came from other countries. Twenty-five percent of our U.S. Nobel laureates were born in other countries. We have a situation right now where we need workers in our fields and in our factories. We need them to start small businesses. We need their ideas. And this president has literally gone backwards at a time when our economy needs immigrants. And so my proposal is to look at that 2013 bill that passed the Senate with Republican support, to upgrade that bill, to make it as good as possible and get it done. It brings the debt down by $158 billion.
  • TODD: Thank you, Congressman O'Rourke. Hang on. Let me give 30 seconds, Senator Klobuchar, the iron range. I'm curious. Gun confiscation, right? If the government is buying back, how do you not have that conversation?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, that's not confiscation. You could give them the offer to buy back their gun. But I'll say this. I look at these proposals and I say, does this hurt my Uncle Dick and his deer stand, coming from a proud hunting and fishing state? These proposals don't do that. When I was a prosecutor, I supported the assault weapons ban. When I was in the Senate, I saw those moms from Sandy Hook come and try to advocate for change, and we all failed. And then now these Parkland kids from Florida, they started literally a national shift. You know why? It's just like with gay marriage. When kids talked to their parents and their grandparents, they say I don't understand why we can't put these sensible things in place, they listen. And if we get bested by a bunch of 17-year-olds...
  • My life and my career and my work in the Senate has been about economic opportunity. And to me, this means better childcare for everyone in this country. And when you want an economy that works, you need to have retirement that works, you need to have public schools that work. And you also need to make sure that those communities are able to get those jobs of the future, the STEM jobs. In fact, Donald Trump, one of the first bills that he signed of the 34 he signed where I was the lead Democrat -- OK, that's a first up here -- was one that was about that, making sure minority community members could share in those jobs. So to me, this is about a few things. It's about an African-American woman that goes to a hospital in New Orleans, says her hands are swollen, and then doctor ignores her and her baby dies. It's about the fact that African-American women make 61 cents for every dollar a white man makes. So in short, we need, one -- and I will do this in my first 100 days as president -- we will work to make sure everyone can vote at this table, everyone can vote in this country and we will also go to the next step of criminal justice reform. Senator Booker and I worked on that First Step Act, but we should go to the second step act, which is to help all our communities across our country.

2021

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2022

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  • Congestion at ports and increased shipping costs pose unique challenges for U.S. exporters, who have seen the price of shipping containers increase four-fold in just two years. Meanwhile, ocean carriers have reported record profits. This legislation will level the playing field by giving the Federal Maritime Commission greater authority to regulate harmful practices by carriers and set rules on what fees carriers can reasonably charge shippers and transporters. As we work to improve our supply chains, I’ll keep fighting to establish trade opportunities for the U.S.

Quotes about Klobuchar

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  • For a brief moment last Tuesday after the Democratic presidential debate, past the hallways that snaked from the spin room to the exit near the back of the Gaillard Center in South Carolina, two of the candidates ended up stuck together in a small room, unable to leave. There was a problem with the door — security needed to unlock it — and so they stood together waiting. Had chance put them there with anybody else, it might’ve been a moment of awkward silence. Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders dislike plenty of people, but not each other. The fact of their friendship, based on a little-discussed, yearslong mutual respect, is all at once entirely unexpected and intuitively obvious. As candidates, they shared a stubborn force of will and a fierce distaste for their enemies — both of them salty, but in vastly different ways. As senators, they work together all the time, but in matters of ideology and political sensibility, they agree on very little. He, for example, will hate this article — see: "political gossip," personality-driven media, etc. She already loves it.
 
Klobuchar has proven cross-party support that I fear Warren will lose in key electoral states. ~ Jeanne Dietsch
  • Klobuchar has proven cross-party support that I fear Warren will lose in key electoral states.
  • Harris certainly benefits from the fact that few Democratic officeholders come to mind who could defeat her for the Democratic presidential nomination. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar performed well during her 2020 bid for the Democratic nomination, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has charisma and speaking skills. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg impressed some during his 2020 presidential run, as did Elizabeth Warren, who will turn 75 before the 2024 presidential election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is an obvious name to consider, as is Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, if she is reelected in November.
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