Members as well as the general public. Thank you for spend your evening with us. The conversation will begin in a second. We are going to have a conversation, the first part of it, and then we will welcome you to join into the conversation and ask questions. Those of you who are members of the Georgetown Community here in the zoom room, at the bottom of your screen, you will see a q a tab and you will click on that to submit your question. At some point during the course of the evening, our staff will let you know when your question has been selected and then a few moments later, we will put you up on the screen. So make sure you are broadcast ready at that point. You will get a chance to ask your question directly of our guests. Also, before we move on, want to thank our partners for social justice at georgetown. They have been tremendous partners in this event. Theyve got some Pretty Amazing resources on these topics. On their website. Csj. Georgetown. Edu. They are also on our website, so feel free to check those out. When our guests first accepted this invitation a few weeks ago, we were planning to have a conversation focused primarily on Voting Rights. We will get to that tonight. But since then, the world seems to have changed a bit. We can feel the ground shifting under our feet. And the events of the past few weeks have really focused the spotlight on bigger issues some bigger issues around justice and injustice in america. The covid19 crisis is showing us disproportionate impacts on community of color, raising questions about health justice. The most recent jobs report that came out last week, while we can all breathe a sigh of relief that theyre not as bad as the economists predicted and feared, still saw black unemployment rising, raising very real questions about economic justice. And of course the senseless deaths of breonna taylor, ahmaud arbery, and george floyd raises many questions about racial and social and criminal issues. Justice issues. As tragic as that all is, we have felt that ground shift under us as more people are calling for reform and standing up to say black lives matter. But not everyone is there. In a recent example, a member of the president s team denying that there is any institutional racism in america. So i want to begin the conversation there. , with that question that has been posted by several members from the Trump Administration, is it systemic . Is there institutional racism and injustice in america . Let me start with mr. Holder. Mr. Holder thanks for having me. I dont think there is any question if there was institutional racism when it comes to the criminal Justice System. It is in oure i society. Why would you expect that the Justice System would be any different . We have dealt with and try to deal with problems of institutional racism for hundreds of years. Not as successfully as we might want. I dont think there is any question that the society that we now have was better than was 50 years ago. And 50 years before that. It still deals with the problem of institutional racism. As i said, it is in the society as a whole, and you would expect to find it in the criminal Justice System in particular. I think we have an opportunity now to really attack this problem in ways that we have have not been able to in the past. You see i think there is recognition of a wide swath of American People that there is a problem with institutional racism and it is a problem that needs to be addressed. I sent a tweet that we have a moment right now, but the question is, can convert that into a movement . We can convert it into a concrete effort. The protesters have set the stage for what has to be country togetherness. Mo senator, i wonder if you can share your thoughts on systemic racism and injustice. We touched on some of those issues that youve been working. On in the senate. The injustice and how it ties into a broader conversation. Sen. Klobuchar thank you, mo. Thank you, georgetown. Husband teaches a Death Penalty class at a law school and i have spent some time in this. I am really pleased to be here. And my friend eric holder, i look at him and i think of, you dont know what youve got until its gone. When you see an attorney general you see people teargas and an attorney general who has basically played horrible political games with the law. People have been fired who should not have been fired. We need to bring some decency back to the Justice Department. Eric holder had it in spades. What i want to talk about is the systemic racism. I was thinking as eric talked about this, it is criminal justice. That is loud and clear. But it is way beyond that when an africanamerican woman shows up at a Maternity Ward in new orleans and says her hands are swollen and she leaves without treatment because nobody listened and her baby dies, that is systemic racism and health in health care. When you have africanamerican kids that are in classrooms that are way too crowded, dont have good buildings, that is systemic racism. Racism. When you have a man like george floyd in my state that gets murdered by a Police Officer on videotape for the whole world to see as he pleads for his life, and other people from my state, and i see the pain in their eyes every day, standing around every day, standing around saying he cant breathe, stop, and no one listens, four officers that is systemic racism. I think that is what has happened is with the mobilization that we are seeing on the streets and i am sure there are people on the call who have been protesting and thank you for that. It was captured for a minute and in a way we had never seen before and that needed to happen. I think what youre getting is think what youre getting is that while that videotape shouldve been shed a big light in racism and murder we have a lot going on in so many aspects of our country right now. So to me the answer is health care, as you mentioned, making sure that people can get health care. The pandemic, you want to talk about institutional racism, the fact that people of color are dying at literally double the rate of the population percentage in certain states. Why . Because they are on the front lines working. A lot of them are in crowded housing or credit transportation and they dont have the ability that other people have. To me, the disparities we saw before, the pandemic has just put one big magnifying glass on it. It just calls out for a solution. Those are the things like housing, the backlog of section eight, and make sure we are eight, and make sure we are investing in better housing. Doing something about health care and getting a public option in place. Something that Vice President biden is committed to do when he gets into office. Making sure that weve got an Education System that works for everyone. So that one of those kids out there one day will be able to develop the next vaccine for the next pandemic. We should not be cutting out a we should not be cutting out a whole bunch of people in our country just because we are not giving them a chance. That is what i am hopeful of. Again, this is right in the this is right in the middle of my state, not far from where i live. Anything that can be a legacy of george floyd, should be change in the criminal Justice System and in policing, but also a change in our economics. Mo i think the video, as you mo i think the video, as you mentioned, early was a wakeup call to a lot of people. But it is not the first video, tragically, that we have seen. The Police Brutality. I can remember a number of cases where videos of Police Brutality resulting in death have ended up on the news and lasted a couple of news cycles and then we moved on. So im wondering, why is it different this time . But also why havent we been able why havent we have this kind of a moment after seeing those previous videos . Mr. Holder good question. I think at least in part it has to do with the video itself. Even if you look at some of the other videos, i dont think we other videos, i dont think we you saw a video quite as compelling. That is a hard thing to say when youre talking about somebodys life being taken in all of these videos, but in this when you you have somebody who was face one down, handcuffed behind his back, pleaing to be released, bystanders saying he cant breathe, let him up calling for , his mother. And it goes on and on and on and on. Eight minutes and 46 seconds is a long period of time. That is at least part of it. It also comes in a year in which we have seen what happened to other people, other videos. We all heard about what happened to breonna taylor. Also with the quarantine and the pandemic. A whole range of reasons dealing with the problems of the Trump Administration, a lack of sensitivity and a lack of meant by the Trump Administration on anything that would affect the wellbeing of people of color. It is a combination of all that that has brought us to this moment. Mo just a reminder to the audience, the q a tab is opened. You can feel free to populate that with your questions at any point during the program. To piggyback off of what the attorney general was talking about, senator, it seems Like Congress is at least talking about the issue in a way that it has not in the past. Democrats have already put forward proposals. Republicans have convened a group to start putting together their own proposals on Police Reform specifically. So im wondering, from your Vantage Point in the senate, what are the kind of reforms should we be exploring related to these issues . Im especially interested in whether or not you think there are areas where we might be able to find bipartisan cooperation. Sen. Klobuchar first of all, we cant simply pretend that we do and do a resolution and it is fine. If we answer with silence, we are basically complicit. If we answer like the president and say dominance, we are monsters. If we answer it with action, then we are lawmakers, which is what we are supposed to do. And when you look at the george floyd case, and it is right in my face. The number one is justice in that case. For the attorney general, i think is a good thing and charged all of the officers involved. Number two, a pattern practice involved. Number two, a pattern practice investigation, which eric well knows, the Obama Administration started 25 of those. The Trump Administration has only done one. Weve asked them to do that that has to happen in the Trump Administration. Statebystate, they can do that. The first bit is accountability. In a bill that my friends are leading and we have a number of us who are cosponsors and we are working on it, the number one thing is changing the standards where you decide it is ok on what a Police Officer does. It is changing the standards where they can be sued, making it more doable to bring the suits in cases like this. The third thing is banning chokeholds. Changing some of the standards that we have for police conduct. And then there is a whole other grouping of issues related to transparency. To get that information out there, so you can have, as eric knows have a cop in one , jurisdiction move to the other and they dont know what they have done. Making those records public. Making the use of force and what has happened public. And then finally, of course, training. Making sure we ban chokeholds and have cameras everywhere, mandated body cameras. It is a big, sweeping bill of reforms supported by a lot of groups. Now its on us. Your question was about republicans. They have said a lot of things. We saw mitt romney out there marching with the marchers. Which i appreciated very much. But now it time for them to move. We will see what they do. Again, if they just do a resolution and say we need training and nothing else i think we have seen that before. This is time for major change on the federal, state, and local levels. Mo one of the areas on the disagreement at least in the early stage of these discussions is how much this should be federal response versus state and local response. That is part of the question in this town. I would love your thoughts on that, attorney general holder. How much of this should be left to the states and how much how much of this should be left to the states and how much should the federal government pick up . Mr. Holder there are 18,000 Police Departments in the country. The federal government cannot impose regulations that oversee all of those departments. There has to be some degree of local and state involvement. But in the way the senator said, to make sure the baseline standards are met. But then there will be the question about how much money the Police Department gets. Those are decisions that have to be made by mayors and governors. There needs to be state control as well. We do not think it needs to be either or. It has to be both. And both sides, the federal government and state and local, government have to make sure they are responsive, and come up with concrete, Real Solutions to the problems that we have been dealing with far too long. This is really a test. As the senator said, this is going to define who you are as a senator, congressman, governor, senator, congressman, governor, as a mayor. Where do you stand on fundamental issues of fairness and justice . That will be delineated by the positions you take into the votes you cast, the opposition you put up or the support you give. And the voters have to remember this. At the end of the day, where do these people stand . I think it is both. I think it is both. We always try to say it is one or the other. I think as in most things, it is a combination of both. Mo you just brought up funding and how that is often times a decision mayors make. We have had a conversation the past week or so by some activists and, frankly, some cities. Senator klobuchar, you are on cities. Senator klobuchar, you are on the council in minneapolis. Around this movement of defunding police. There has been attacking the democrats. Forbiden has said i am not defunding, more with reforming. I am curious your thoughts on that. The defund the police argument. Sen. Klobuchar first of all, it is conditioned. One of the things that has happened is that we havent done anything in washington is untrue. We have done inches instead of miles. Building on some of the work from the Obama Administration to reduce sentences on nonviolent offenders. But now this is what we need to do. When you look at this, if there is money going from the federal level, there should be conditions on this. That is one of the proposals in this bill. In addition to banning chokeholds, you could also put conditions on not giving money unless they actually put in place a ban. Place a ban. Thats a first way to look at it. Im not in favor of abolishing Public Safety departments and Police Departments, but you can put conditions on funding. The other thing to remember is that part of this, if you can put all the money you want into police, but unless you do one of police, but unless you do one of the things we talked about earlier when it comes to improving funding for things like childcare and education in historically impoverished areas, we will never get out of the loop we are in. That is a bigger question worldwide of economic disparity. Mr. Holder i agree with that. If i was talking to the people who came up with the phrase defund the police, i would say lets rethink that phrase. I dont think it is as trump and the republicans are trying to portray as ive seen people talk about it. I agree with it when they are saying in the sense that they are talking about reimagining the way the Police Department and people in Law Enforcement, the criminal Justice System interacts with communities of color. I think you put too much emphasis on the police. We ask them to deal with Mental Health issues. Some of the sheriffs in this country have some of the largest if not the largest Mental Health responsibilities in their states. We have the Police Responding to Mental Health situations when we could have other people doing that. We have Police Responding to a man selling loose cigarettes or potentially passing a fake 20 bill. The police dont need to respond to all those kinds of things. So i think we need to come up with ways in which we define better the responsibilities that we want the police to handle. And we need to think about a peace dividend. We have crime rates now that are at historically low levels. Peace dividend. We have crime rates now that are at historically low levels. Given that, we should look at the budgets we have in Police Departments and try to make the determination, do we need to spend the amount of money we spend on the police to keep the American People safe . I think it was los angeles, 54 of the budget is spent on the police. I dont know. I am not an expert on all things los angeles, but that seems to me a pretty extraordinarily high number. So i think we need to ask the tough questions about whether we can spend the money in other ways. We need to think about whether we can spend on prevention activities, so that we can prevent people from becoming involved in the criminal Justice System in the first place instance instead of warehousing them in the penal part of the criminal Justice System. Theres a whole way in w