Let’s skip the happy talk: Democrats are in a dark place. It’s not merely that Donald Trump has rolled back into Washington with an everything-everywhere-all-at-once approach to grabbing power. The new president is buoyed by eager-to-please Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress and a #Resistance movement that feels played out.
The American people, meanwhile, remain in a surly mood with the blue team. A new Quinnipiac University poll shows the Democratic Party with its highest unfavorability rating (57 percent), and the Republican Party with its highest favorability rating (43 percent), since the organization began asking the question in 2008.
To claw their way out of this pit, the Democrats need to do some serious rebuilding and rebranding. But how?
Senator Amy Klobuchar has thoughts — so many, in fact, that when we spoke on Thursday, she was practically breathless trying to share them all. They are well worth a listen. Ms. Klobuchar, a Minnesota moderate, knows how to win in the heartland, including in rural territory not especially friendly to Democrats. In her re-election race last November, she outperformed her party’s presidential candidate by more than 11 points. Her secret, as she explained it, has something tangentially to do with … bedbugs.
In December, Ms. Klobuchar was elevated to be the chair of her caucus’s Steering and Policy Committee, making her the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate. From this key leadership post, part of her mandate is to help reshape her team’s policy priorities.
Two days before the Democratic National Committee was meeting to elect a new chair to help lead it out of the wilderness, Ms. Klobuchar hopped on the phone with me to talk about some of the big questions facing her party: how it lost its way, what it needs to do to rebuild public trust and how Democratic lawmakers should handle the reconstituted and re-energized Trump presidency. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Michelle Cottle: You sit on the Judiciary Committee, and we are talking during a break in the committee’s confirmation hearing for Kash Patel to become the new head of the F.B.I. This is one of President Trump’s more provocative picks. As a member of the minority party, how do you approach these controversial nominees? Realistically, with your questioning, what are you looking to accomplish?
Amy Klobuchar: Sometimes these hearings are just to get some facts out there. But oftentimes you are able to ask the nominee about what their plans are for a department and really hold them accountable for what they’ve said. I’ve seen that time and time again, and that actually can help to get nominees to do their jobs and follow through on the mission of the agencies. I’m not sure that’s gonna happen here.
Then you have situations where there is a chance that the Republicans will not all go lock step. It’s very important to make the point that: Is this really what you want as Republicans? Do you really want someone who, in the case of Kash Patel, has been hawking Covid vaccine reversals, who has said that every election was rigged by our government in 2016 and 2020, who said we should shut down the F.B.I. headquarters and turn it into a museum, who has been criticized by a former Republican attorney general, who they respect very much, that he didn’t have the experience for the job? They have to think long and hard. And I’m not simply talking about the people on the committee, who seem dug in on the other side. There may be other senators who are not.
We’re only a couple of weeks into the Trump administration, and I think it’s fair to say it’s been a lot already. He’s taking a shock-and-awe approach.
I look at it this way: Chaos up. Corruption up. And, sadly, the cost of eggs is way up. No matter how many tech bros you have at the inauguration, none of that helps the people who weren’t in that room. Those are the people that he told he was going to work to bring down housing costs, to create more housing, to do more on child care, to bring down health care costs, and he kept telling us how beautiful it would be. Well, all of this — and maybe it’s done for a distraction — but all of this chaos takes us away from that mission.
So how do Democrats respond? What should the strategy be when you’ve got this fire hose coming at you?
Well, first of all, it is very clear that, if there is a middle of all of this hot mess of division, Americans want us to work together when we can and find common ground. We have said repeatedly — our leaders, individual senators — that we are ready to do that. So that’s No. 1.
No. 2 is, when they start violating the law and firing inspectors general without following the law, when they start illegally cutting off funding for home heating and other things that people need to live, we are going to stand our ground. When an unknown bureaucrat in the Office of Management and Budget issues a two-page memorandum that says, “Hey, we’re just cutting off cancer trials. Sorry,” we stood our ground in a big way. So it is a combination of finding that common ground and standing our ground.
Going even broader, where does the Democratic Party go from here in terms of rebuilding lost public trust so that you’re coming back from this last election?
We’re coming back! And we are in this. That’s the first thing people need to know. And if they ever doubted that, they could see what happened this week when we stood up big time to the Trump administration when they were trying to cut off firefighter grants and kids cancer research.
But. It was clearly a change election. We are aware of that. That happens in other countries, that happens in our own nation, over and over again. But that is not an excuse. That’s descriptive, but it can’t be an excuse. We know we have to change, and that means we have to clearly have the back of the American people.
I would actually pick things that really matter to the American people right now, and that is the cost of housing and child care. There’s some innovative things that we can do either with Republicans or put out there at the state level with our governors — Don’t forget! This isn’t all about Washington. We have some incredibly strong Democratic governors out there — on child care, housing, prescription drugs and health care.
We have to suggest some game-changing ideas as the Republicans fight within their camps, of Elon Musk versus Steve Bannon, we have to be out there holding them accountable, but also putting forth a positive agenda when it comes to health care and everything from, when you look at the mess that we’re in, more prescription drug reductions, taking on these pharma patents and Big Pharma and making clear that we think that we should make health care more affordable with everything from the public option — as opposed to dismantling the Affordable Care Act, making it stronger. I would expand Medicare to 55. I would do more about the denial of insurance claims, all those are things that we need to move forward on business opportunity.
You are a heartland Democrat ——
I am a heartland Democrat! And part of this is respecting our farmers, our ranchers and our small businesses. And that means the work force and making sure we are behind it, big time. And make it clear, as our governors have done and our national leaders have done, that these one- and two-year degrees, making them more affordable. We need people working in those areas.
Export markets, opening them up, not just for the big corporations, but for the small businesses — which is why I’m so concerned about Donald Trump’s across-the-board tariffs that he has proposed.
And then finally, we need to stand up for safety. I’m the lead on the COPS reauthorization, which helps local police departments with funding. We have to do more and make a priority out of retaining and hiring police officers. We have to stand with our firefighters, and that includes those that have been exposed to toxic substances. I lead the bill with Senator Kevin Cramer on that front.
And consumers — you’re going to see a concerted effort to break down things that protect consumers. I am a big believer in competition. I think that helps consumers. It brings down cost. It’s why I opposed that grocery chain merger. It is why I have made a big deal out of these tech monopolies. All of those things I put under the consumer category. So the costs, whether it’s housing, child care, prescription drugs and health care in general.
These are all practical, kitchen table issues that seem like they would appeal to Middle America. So why has the party been struggling with Middle America? Have they not been focusing on these issues enough? What happened?
This was, as I said, a change election. And so, when you are the incumbent party and people want change, you start from a difficult position. So we’re going to have to recapture that. And remember, we are not the status quo anymore — in Washington, at least, the Republicans control all three branches of government. So it is on us to strongly make the case.
Do you think the Resistance is dead — or exhausted?
No! Not at all. I mean, look at the Kennedy hearing and our colleagues and how they took that on — Exhibit A. Look at the Kash Patel hearing that you were just watching — Exhibit B, and that really gets to constitutional issues and law enforcement and our view that you’ve got to have someone competent running the F.B.I.
But then the second sort of grouping of things: Look at what we did when they tried — and they really did try — to stop all outlays of grants and loans to everyone from farmers to small businesses to firefighters. We stood up. Not the Republican Party. The Democratic Party stood up, and that’s what people need to see more of.
There’s been a lot of talk about whether the party needs to push back against parts of the activist base. Joe Biden was criticized for not doing that. What is your thought on that? I mean, you’re a moderate. You’re very bipartisan. Are there things you disagree with the party, or some of its special interest allies, about that concern you?
I believe that we need to focus on these bread-and-butter issues. That doesn’t mean that I disagree with some of the positions of different groups, but I think it’s really important that we pick our battles, just as we did this week, and we keep doing that time and time again. Then voters and the people of this country will be able to see which side we’re on. Because of the changing nature of media and social media and people being exposed to everything and not the same things, it’s really important that we pick our battles.
I have young adult children, and a lot of their friends associate the party now with what is characterized as wokeism, and I’m wondering if this is a failure of communication or perception? Or how do you address that?
I’ll tell you how I address it. I can just go to what I did in Minnesota. So you know I won my race by — I don’t want to get the numbers wrong here — 16 points. I ran ahead of the presidential ticket by 11 points. And I think a lot of that was building trust. You can do that over time, but you can also do that just by the nature of the fact that you show up. So that’s the first thing I’d say. If we just go where it’s comfortable, and not where it’s uncomfortable, we will never win elections like we should on a national basis.
What I’m talking about here is, in my case, I visit all 87 counties every year. In some places, I think I know everyone in the county. One of my favorite visits, I went to an award-winning small business that was a truck, and the name of it was We Kill Bedbugs With Heat. They put mattresses in a truck and turn up the temperature over 150 degrees, and that’s what they did. And they had me go in the truck — but they didn’t turn up the heat! And so I tell that story because you go where it’s uncomfortable, not just where it’s comfortable.
Especially for rural America in the next few years, there are a lot of things heading their way. They have, as you know, traditionally voted for the Republican Party. But when you look at some of the things that are proposed by the Trump administration, which includes health care cuts that could very much decimate rural hospitals and health care, which includes these across-the-board tariffs which will greatly hurt our export market for farmers because of retaliation. And it’s been my experience that our farmers want trade that’s an even playing field for them. They don’t want aid, they want trade that works for America. So that’s the second thing.
The third thing is that people are patriotic on both sides of the aisle. And this is one of the things that bothers me so much about Kash Patel. As someone that has supported numerous Republican nominees for jobs, including for the F.B.I., I have voted for them, I have supported them and I have put my trust in them, even though they may not have been the first person that I would have picked. When you start putting in people who are going in there on a revenge agenda, people that see this as some kind of fidelity to the president as opposed to the American people, I think all kinds of bad things can happen. That’s why I wanted to make the point so clearly at the inauguration that the reason we swear in United States presidents in the Capitol and not at the White House or in some gilded executive office building is because we believe in three equal branches of government, and never has that been more important than now.
You spent more time with Trump during the inauguration than most Dems in your role running the day.
That would be putting it mildly. Yes.
Did he say anything memorable to you?
I would say that, during the time with President Biden in the car and at the White House with the president and the vice president, I wish that that cordial discussion on all sides, I wish that that was reflected in Trump’s speech. Because we discussed — I’m not going to disclose everything we discussed — we discussed a number of issues. We talked a little bit about football. But we talked about the L.A. fires and the need to, with the Olympics coming, how important it is to help them rise from the ashes. And then I spoke with him for a lengthy period of time at lunch and through the day.
So up close you see a more likable side?
I see someone that was willing to listen to my ideas. And I just wish that was reflected in what he said and does as president.
Before I let you go, I have to ask: Is there a world in which you run for president again in 2028?
I am focused on what I am doing now. I have never seen a more important moment for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress. We have a close margin in the House that gives members of both parties — those that do not agree, that will not bend to every wish and whim of the president — the opportunity to show they are fulfilling their constitutional duty. This is our moment in time.
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