Transcript for Sen. Klobuchar: Court nominee should be a 'balanced person'

And now let's bring in senator Amy klobuchar of Minnesota. She's a key Democrat on the juciary committee set to question present trump's eventual supreme court pick. Senator klobuchar, you just heard nato Collins say there are some people on the president's original list of candidates she could not support. What your reaction to that? Well, I thought her comments were very heartening. Susan Collins, Lisa murkowski have shown time and time again that they're willing to buck their party when it comes to important issues like supporting the affordable care act, dending planned parenthood, defending women's fundamental rights. They have done that and those were the words I was hearing from senator Collins. She is someone that respects precedent and that is what's so important about this position. As you noted at the beginning, this ia position that will have consequences for generations. The court makes decisions in the last decade about who you can marry, where you can go to school, what your work is going to be like. My grandpa was a miner 1500 feet under the ground andourt decisions made his workplace safer. This is an incredibly important job and when you look at the cases that are going to come up, Martha, includinwhether or not insurance companies can kick off people if they have a pre-existing condition, that was a case the administration just argued that down in Texas. That case is going to make its way to the court. Senator, we know U don't really support president trump. You differ with him on major issues, but when you look at that list of 25, is there anyone on that you woulsupport? The ones I've seen that have emerged to the top of the list, no. Number of them I have voted on already because I've already seen that when you look ck at their record a number of them are writing concurrences where they go out of tir way to try to make new law just as you saw with what Stice Gorsuch did recently Abo the reasonable expectation of privacy in a dissent that he wrote or when he joined with Clarence Thomas on an issue about racial redistcting and racial voting rights. You see this time and time again with some of these nominees and I think what you want is someone who's not an ideologue -- Go ahead with that but how do you get a real sen of someone who wouldn't overturn roe V. Wade? You do that by asking estions and the first fork in the road he is going to be people like senator Collins, Republicans, and I wouldn't just say the women. Let's hear frosome of these N, senator ake, senator McCain, senator corker, others who weigh in, that you want someone who's gog to hold precedent. Roe V. Wade 45 years on the book is precedent. The second thing is when you have a nominee you ask those questions. By the way, we asked brown V. Board of education a number of nominees and they answered it if they taught that was a settled law of the land. Yes, you're not supposed to ask questions and they're not going to talk about cases that may come before them, but I don't know why you wouldn't ask about cases that are 50, 100 years old and how they would have voted on those cases. That's H you figure out whether they put their money where their mouth is, whether they're really going to respect predent. The president met on Thursday evening with senator Collins as well as the of your fellow Democrats who voted in favor O justice Gorsuch, including north Dakota senator Heitkamp. She said of that meeting that she had urged the president to appoint someone who is, quote, pragmatic, fair, compassionate, committed to justice and above politics, but what do you say to your fellow Democrats up for re-election in red states that trump dominated? Wouldn't they damage their chains of re-election if they do not support his nominee? These are senatorthat are going to do the right thing. Yes, they ve bucked our party time and time again and that's part of who th are. They do what they feel is best for their state. On the other HD, you have seen them united, all 48 Democrats from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin stand up to defend the affordable care act so that people don't get their health care taken away from them. So I think what they're doing is similar to what senator Collins has just said. They're saying, we want someone who's not an ideolog on the bench. While justice Kennedy has been very conservative at times, he wrote the opinion on marriage equality. He wash deciding vote in the Casey case that uphe roe V. Wade. That was him. So if you look at his -- the arc of his decisions and what he's done, you want someone that's going to show that kind of Independence and is not going to set us back to a time en a woman was made a criminal just for exercising her own reproductive rights. When you look at what we've seen -- Senator klobuchar, I just want to make sure weove on a little bit here. Beyond trying to swapublic opinion, can you gethe nominee to be delayed until after the mid-terms? How can you really do that? Procedurally, that's going to be up to when the majority leader brings th forward, but we can make this case that this N't ancient precedent. In 2016 the Republicans took the position that you shouldn't vote on a nominee in an election year and it wn't just because it was a presidential election. You've got senator hatch saying you shouldn't do it in a political year. We have Roger wickeraying that the election will determine the type of senatehat we will have, his words, so we should wa until after the election year. So we Wille strongly making that case and taking our- every single senator should be able to meet with the nominee. While senator Collins used that figure 65 days, I believe it's longer when you back through history at how long it has taken for a judge to actually have a vote on the floor. We want to make sure -- Justice Gorsuch, 66 days, justice Sotomayor, 66 days. But I want to move on. Are you saying that the court should start without a full bench or that justice Kennedy should stay beyond his retirement date of July 31st? I'm say that certainly T Republicans made the argument in 2016 that they could take their time and you could have 8 on the bench. I didn't agree with them back then buthey set a new precedent. We're saying you shod let the people have a say until after the election in this critical position. What's more important is the cision that's being made right now by the president and that we mustontinue to weigh in on having a balanced person that's going to look at the law and look at precedent and ke decisions based on the law. And I want to just T you quickly on immigration. You too saw those protests, I'm sure, this weekend and calls to abolish I.C.E. Do you think I.C. Should be abolished, immigration customs enforcement? Ihink what has to change are the policies a the people that are making these policies E making horrendous decisions like separating kids from their parents. We are always going to need immigration enfoement, Martha. I think we knothat. We are a major country with major borders, so to me the issue is what are those policies and please let's get comprehensive immigration reform, something I've strongly supported for years. We passed a bill out of the Nate that not only involved order at the border and funding for that, it also involved a path to cizenship for people who obey the law, for people who Len to speak English, for peopleho are part of this country for decades. That's what I think we nd which of course includes the dreamers, includes people who have been here legal. That is what we need to do. I am just appalled by how this administration has been Taing about immigrants. They don't diminish America. They are America. Okay, thanks very much for joining us this morning, senator klobuchar. Up next, the view of the

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