Interview With Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar; Republicans Keeping Health Care Bill Secret From Public
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. We have some breaking news for you in our national lead. A jury in Minnesota reached a verdict in a police shooting, one that you may remember. It received worldwide attention because the aftermath was streamed live on Facebook. You might remember the case of Philando Castile. His girlfriend was broadcasting on Facebook Live after he was shot by an officer during a traffic stop. Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who shot and killed Castile, was found not guilty just now, not guilty of second-degree manslaughter. He was also acquitted of two counts of intentional discharge of a firearm that endangered safety. Those charges were because Castile's girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter were also in the car. Joining me now is Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She's a member of the Judiciary Committee. Senator, you're here to discuss other issues. We just got this breaking news. But because you're from Minnesota, I do want to ask you about your reaction to this verdict.</s>SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: Well, Jake, I just heard about it myself. And I will say that I got to know Philando Castile's family. He was someone who was loved in his school. And this has been a really tough case for everyone involved. There were top-notch prosecutors from the U.S. attorneys and the Ramsey County Attorney's Office that were handling this case. I'm sure we will learn more about why the jury reached the verdict that they did. I always believe in the jury system, but I hope that -- tonight, I know that people had planned a protest for whatever night the verdict came out at the state capitol. And they said it would be peaceful. And I hope, for our community's sake, that that will be the case. It's just been a very tough thing on the family, of course, and also the community.</s>TAPPER: Yes, our thoughts and prayers with the family, of course, and with the people of Minnesota. Let's turn to politics and some national issues. The president tweeted earlier: After seven months of investigations and committee hearings about my, quote, collusion with the Russians, unquote, nobody has been able to show any proof. Sad! Your reaction to that. There are Trump supporters who say, you know, where's the evidence? Where's the collusion? What's your -- what's your response?</s>KLOBUCHAR: Well, there are ongoing Senate Intelligence Committee investigations involving Democrats and Republicans coming together. You saw that committee doing its work over the last few weeks and they are not done. They are continuing to investigate Russian interference in our election. We've had 17 intelligence agencies with the U.S. government, non-partisan, intelligence agencies saying it happened and now, there is a special counsel or special prosecutor investigating. The work is not done yet, and I think what I'm most disturbed about was the president's tweet number four and the four tweets that occurred in the early morning hours in which he talked about the firing -- that he was told to fire the FBI director from the deputy attorney general who is now investigating him when in fact, and this is public, because we asked at our briefing if it could be public, the deputy attorney general actually wrote the memo about the firing after he had been told that the president had planned to fire the FBI director. And so, all of this just leads me to the conclusion that the special prosecutor Mueller who has just gotten this appointment, just hiring people, starting to do his job, must be allowed to do his job. And in the words of Lindsey Graham, my Republican colleague, it would be simply a disaster at this point to fire him. He hasn't even started doing his job.</s>TAPPER: Are you -- do you share the concern of Senator Dianne Feinstein that the president is gearing up to both fire both Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor, and also potentially the deputy attorney general who technically is the only one who can fire the special counsel? Do you worry that both Mueller and Rosenstein are head for the chopping block?</s>KLOBUCHAR: You know, I wasn't worried about that after Rod Rosenstein had firmly said just this last week in front of the Senate committee that in fact he was the only one that could do that. It would have to be for lawful reasons, so I thought, okay. This is put to rest. We'll get to the bottom of the facts. Let the chips fall where they may. But now with the president sending this last tweet out this morning, it really is concerning that he's attacking his own deputy attorney general, someone that served under President Bush, someone who has served in the Justice Department for years. And I just hope is that would not be the case, and it is not the president that can fire Mueller. Rod Rosenstein under the rules is the one that would have to do that.</s>TAPPER: Senator, can you explain what's going on with the health care bill being drafted by Senate Republicans. We're hearing a lot of complaints from Senate Democrats that there are no hearings and everything is being done behind closed doors. Is there really no way for a senator such as yourself to find out what's in this legislation that's being drafted?</s>KLOBUCHAR: At this point, we have no idea what is in the legislation. No one has seen a copy. We don't know how much it would cost. We don't know how many Americans would lose their insurance and here, the president with his direct words behind closed doors the other day when referring to the House bill called it mean, and I thought that was pretty interesting. You don't need a poll groups, you don't a focus group, you can you just call it what it is and he called it mean. And what we don't want to have in the Senate is the Senate mean or mean, too. We don't want another bill that throws a bunch of people off their insurance. There should be changes to the Affordable Care Act, changes to the way the exchanges work, changes in the pharmaceutical prices. I have three different bipartisan bills, including bringing drugs -- less expensive drugs from Canada and stopping pharma from paying off the generic companies to keep their products off the market. I have a bill to allow for negotiation for our seniors to get rid of the ban that stops our seniors from using their market power to negotiate the price of drugs. There's a bunch of things we could do, but just throwing it out without really a replacement plan that works for America is not where we should be.</s>TAPPER: Senator Amy Klobuchar, thanks. We'll be thinking about Minnesota this evening.</s>KLOBUCHAR: All right. Thank you, Jake.</s>TAPPER: The day before he opened fire on lawmakers at baseball practice, the shooter seemed to be planning to return home to Illinois. What we're learning today about his behavior before his horrific attack, next.