Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words 20151016

Minnesota. Guest i were the first pair of pants to be worn at beacon heights. He was a Public School and its 10 below zero and i warm up the flowered bell bottom pants. I was so proud of these pants and sure enough i was called into the office, the principal who have this enormous beehive haircut and i still remember to this day. Im sitting there trembling in the chair and she says you can wear your trousers and your culottes and i think she said and your pantaloons at home but it peaked in high school you wear dresses. I literally got a permission slip, watch him to my house through the woods down the hill and changed into addressing came home. And i shed a few tears i will say that much today gradea use that example of why i wrote the book, to show how spirit all changing culture that i ended up being able to wear pants, being able to be the girl that could respond to the world and start a petition drive. At that moment i did what she said and the one little tangent to that story is that when the book came out i actually got a call from someone and he said this is ron and im the son of your principal. Im like oh no. He said i didnt like what you said about my mom. I said ron its true. She really did take me out and he said, and what you said about her hair was a beehive. I said ron i checked on the internet and she had a beehive. I had a lot of respect for her and all of a sudden you hear this laughter this boy says it was al franken my colleague faking that he was the son of the principal but thats how the book started. Host one of the things i took from that story is that the process to learn how to stand up for yourself in a situation like that. It takes some time especially for a girl to figure out how to do that. Guest i think we are seeing the change and one of the reasons i wrote this and its not just about girls but trying to get people from regular background growing up in a middleclass neighborhood in the suburb. I can run for something or at least i can get involved in the political process and for me, my teachers were incredible mentors back then. She wasnt that nice but a lot of the other teachers are the ones that got me out the front of the door when my mitten got stuck or my wild fourth grade teacher with a bright red here who would literally stand in the back of the class and yell, speak louder, i cant hear you when i gave presentations. She would write my report card which i found when i was writing the book, louder. She would put a space between each letter and those are the people that influenced my life. They made it easier for me is the one ahead that i found every step of the way from way back when to the last few years when i went to asia with john mccain and all the male leaders. They would start the meeting and look over at lindsay because he was a second man and john john would say no senator klobuchar is the democratic leader so you will address her next. So i think those people may have helped others along the way in what this book is about. Host in the book the senator next door you write a lot about your family. You write a lot about your dad who was a long time and much beloved columnist and andy worked for the Associated Press. In fact in the year you were born he played a really Important Role in a president ial election. Tell us about that. Guest my dad was actually the one that called the election and this was a situation where illinois, california and minnesota were the last three stakeouts. It was all about california ended up going to nixon. So there is my dad, young reporter and the Associated Press office. This is what happened. I got the tribune with my dad which was a lot of fun and verified from an 87yearold. My dad told george moses, that was his boss. His dads name was moses. He had little doubt the region and minnesota would go for kennedy. If you grew up on minnesotas iron range in the middle of the 20th century he later said you knew first that the area had as many bars as churches and second that nixons prospects in northeastern minnesota in 1964 is bright as the Temperance Movement in west duluth. He emphatically told moses that in northeastern minnesota a workingclass, kennedy would most likely pick up more than twothirds of the vote and thus when the state and if kennedy won minnesotas 11 electoral votes that would put him over the top. After hearing his two reporters out of moses placed a call to the ap in new york sample admin. We are going to elect kennedy he told black man. I have two words for you guys in minneapolis he said pausing before adding with great emphasis, the right. So it was that my dad to go to wordsmith of the hour then in his early 30s got the chance to write the National Story that declared john f. Kennedy the victor in minnesota and thats the next president. His sweaty fingers flew across this old underwood typewriter hammering the keys furiously with no time to follow the usual protocol of three carbon copies underneath. United press international beating to the punch with hand a page to moses containing only a single paragraph at a time. Moses would check a copy or typos and then run it over to the teletype operator paragraph by paragraph. Without a carpenter review and with each page including only a small piece of the story my dad kept yelling to the teletype operator rob, how does that last paragraph and . After a night of little sleep bob would yell back with a period jim, with a period. My dad story calling the election for kennedy sent out across the wires at 12 33 p. M. Eastern time, so this is the next day, appeared in newspapers across the country and james reston of the New York Times explained the next day the calling of the race in minnesota was monumental. At 12 33 reston wrote senator kennedy clenched minnesota and the election. 30 minutes later mr. Nixon made his formal concession. After nixon conceded my dad celebrated the groundbreaking story with moses and johnson. Nice work doing the story moses told him. I almost died twice and barely missed the hernia but the party was my dad went to lunch at a swedish cafe and returned to the office. There he was given his next assignment. Three pigs were stuck in the mud pit near fair abode minnesota. He dug in and wrote a story. So that was the year i was born, youre been those possibilities. New houses in new cars and new refrigerators and the kid from the iron range of minnesota could write a story calling the president ial election, you run the country took a risk and elected a youthful and vigorous leader and a catholic at that. Was a good year to be born in. Host that is a story that a journalist would love and they ended up getting it right. Guest dave asbo who just retired from the ap found some of the old writings from the ap to help confirm that goes on to really go back and remember those. Host when you were born, when you were little girl your dad was covering every things, politics and sports, do you think he thought that girl is going to be u. S. Senator . Guest i dont know. My dad always had ambitions for me. I think he wanted me to be a judge. That was the big dream but he always encouraged me and inspired me and we would go on these crazy bike trips together that were 1200 miles in 11 days and those kinds of things. He really taught me how to persevere. When you go 100 miles in a day and your dad says i think we can do 20 more thats a lesson in perseverance. Host although the story about these marathon bike riders to mothers are terrifying. You write about wearing no, going 145 miles. Guest this is a monday. Host you write in one point i got on my bike and i pretended i had fallen. He did not buy that. Guest i think part of it was he was writing about the story in the newspaper so we have a map showing our progress but the second part was that most of these trips were after my parents got divorced. This was really away, a gift from him in my mind for us to get to know each other again, wayford teenager who didnt want to sit and have long dinners with her dad and talk about what was happening with his love life, this was actually much better way and i think my dad found a great way. Host your parents got divorced partly because of your dad struggle with alcoholism. We are fully aware what he was dealing with . Guest when i was young i did not and around the time i was born there really wasnt that bad at all. He wasnt drinking that much but it got worse as time went on a part of it was the reporter back then. He would go to drinks with pops and with foot of coaches and he was covering the vikings at the time with a highflying life. In the other part of it was his own background. My grandpa was an iron or work or working 15 feet underground and never graduated from high school and my grandpa would go to the bar overtime and drink in my dad grew up seeing now. Whatever it is he clearly was an alcoholic and start his twodrink more and more, oftentimes secretly. When i was growing up i remember being at in a car with him when he went off the road after football game. No one was hurt but it was clearly because he was drinking. We got home and he cried and he told me he wouldnt do it again. Then he had dwis drinking related arrests. Back then in the 70s they didnt do much about it. Host because he was a prominent person. Guest exactly and finally before my wedding i believe in 1993, he got a third dwi driving related incident with alcohol and this time the laws have changed and this time it was treated very seriously. I went in there with him and the lawyer and also the counselor and talk to the judge and we went through everything that happened throughout our lives. He said he stopped ringing for a while and i believed him but then he would go back and he finally went through treatment and literally that was when he found redemption. He wrote a book about how his religion and faith helped him get through that time. He speaks about it all the time to different faith groups and his whole life has been turned around. Hes happily married for the for for third time so i was able to see not only the difficulties and the badness of alcoholism and the effect it has but i was also able to see my dad in that redemption. Host he is open about it. Was it hard to write about it in your book . Guest my dad has written a lot about it. They made it over different but for me personally to tell my story yes. Obviously i showed it to him ahead of time because i wanted to make sure he was okay with it he was a hard thing because you have to sit back and think about the effect. About what it meant to me and to my mom and my sister. Host there was another family crisis that helped propel you into a political career and this is when your daughter was born. Tell us what happened. Guest well my daughter when she was born she couldnt swallow. They came in and got us in the middle of the night and they said shes very sick, she cant swallow. They thought there was a tumor and they thought she might have Cerebral Palsy and they couldnt figure out what was wrong. She was in intensive care with tubes and Everything Else and back then you got kicked out of the hospital in 24 hours. Even if the baby was in intensive care and i had no sleep at all. They are trying to give me all the stuff on. It was really a difficult thing and when she started to get better it took a year and a half but somewhere in the middle she was still set by tubes for a year and a half. I went to the legislature and worked with the legislators and realized you could go to the legislature and talk about things like episiotomies and embarrass the a hold mail legislature. We got one of the first 48hour hospital stays. They had done that it in some other states and the president ended up taking it up on the National Level but i also learned how to get things done so i ended up at the committee. People couldnt say they were against it but somewhere trying to delay it. I brought six pregnant women to the Conference Committee that were friends of mine and they outnumbered the lobbyist 21. When the Legislature Said the pregnant moms they did need the weighted to august 1. It. Host tell us how your daughter is doing now. Guest she is doing much better. Shes a great kid. She is sick a lot growing up because she was so small. She was eyes in the bottom 1 for the first three or four years and she canned kind of came out of that with swallowing therapists and doctors. It was a unique condition. She is a lot of fun and she also didnt mind having the story told. I dont know the would have been her choice. Host you know theres a thread that goes the new year through your new book. Its summed up by a writer who you quoted. Obstacles in the path are not obstacles. They are the path. What does that mean to you . Guest to me that means everyone will have things and a lot of people had a lot worse problems than i did. The key is what you do with them and how the move on and do you try to gain strength from what happens to you and then try to help other people . I guess a lot of people who become Public Servants and i try to kate make that case in the book that not everyone is a cartoon character chaired duking it out everyday. There are a lot of people that go into it for the right reasons and a lot of that has to do with things that have happened to them in their lives either in elected office so that is a lot of what i do in my job and i view these things have happened to me as gifts and i dont mean that in a pollyanna schwabe but they made me understand how those parents of kids with permanent disabilities feel and how difficult that is. I got involved in that issue and what its like to have alcohol in the family and how that led me to work as a prosecutor with some of the treatment bills that we have right now. Host minnesota has some legendary politicians from Harold Stassen t. Hubert humphrey and of course Walter Mondale who has played a role in your political career. How did you meet him . Guest Walter Mondale of course was someone that everyone still loves in minnesota and i first got involved in working with him when i was in college and i applied for an internship when he was the Vice President. I ended up getting that job. It was so glamorous. I showed up my bursting the executive office building. I show up in my assignment, ready to write a big policy was the furniture inventory of every piece of furniture that Vice President office. It took three weeks weeks and as i like to tell kids weeks and has elected to a gifted intern for me that was my first government job and this is my second so take it seriously. Host what did you take Walter Mondale was somebody that you knew and what did you take from his career from what he taught you either he told viewer by example . Guest the ability that he has is something that is missing in todays politics. Ive tried my best to practice how he would treat people. Still when i was working with them later at the law firm the republicans would call him, howard baker and other people to talk about issues. He didnt use a lot of heated rhetoric. Some people make fun of him for being too norwegian but i think there was value to that. I think there was some guy you was some guy you to that and it certainly helped them to get things done. Host when you are becoming more politically active your selfie were addressing the Democratic National convention in 2004 and he gave you some advice. I wonder if you would tell that story and read some of that . Guest the background here is that john kerry, im elected county attorney and john kerry is running for president. Was my first major involvement in being a speaker and in fact the first time that kerry came to minnesota and i introduced him and i made a rookie mistake. I had memories to two minute speech and i said i give to you my first line. The next president of the United States john kerry. They so obviously think im done and comes and puts his hand up my shelter and he says i know youre not done yet. Host and that the right in the book that you had such a strong grip on the microphone. Guest when i got to the senate he said yeah it was being nice but i know i can get away from you. This is actually later they had me speak at the Boston Convention and this is an example of what a great man he was. I got the speech together. It was only three minutes long. I had a joke. It wasnt even that funny words that im going to end with the words of someone famous from texas. What america wants is something as good as its promise. That was the background and they told me could knew that. The morning of the speech Walter Mondale came up to me. You have memorized your speech, right . Theres a teleprompter instead. I should be fine. No that isnt viney said. Remember the time of the these convention when carter said horatio hornblower. I remember i said that he was that i teleprompter screwup he said. Dont trust it, memorize your speech. This seemed a little out of date but even so id memories my speech. Ive turned up at the appointed hour and found myself backstage with Chuck Schumer and Charlie Rangel and it county attorney. Dont ask me why the conventions organizers put me together with that highpowered congressional crowd but they did. It was a pretty good speaking fund and the Convention Hall was fairly full. Senator leahy started into his speech but after half a minute he stopped and looked around. The teleprompter had to gone dark. He made a joke about it by suggesting the malfunction was tied to a wellpublicized fight he recently had with Vice President dick cheney. Eventually someone brought out a copy of senator leahys remarks. Oh my god i thought were stood waiting at the corner of the stage i could see Walter Mondale. He was sitting right there in the front row. I made eye contact with him and i have never seen a more pointed i told you so not in my life. I nodded back. After senator leahy finished his remarks i stepped up to the podium. Someone gave me a printed copy of my speech and at some point after i launched into it the teleprompter came back to life but i rarely look at it and i never looked at the printed copy. Thanks to Walter Mondale, i had memories my speech and i looked only at the crowd. I added some stuff. I had some fun in the speech went great. And i use the bush line. There you go. Host two years later you were elected to the u. S. Senate so you were the first woman elected in your own right to the senate from minnesota. Whats your agenda of the asset or liability . Guest we have had strong women to majority leader in the 80s and before that in the 70s with secretary of state and they have vote loss. When i started running people that are really asked me do you think a woman can win and with the reference that came with it. Host this was 2010. Guest at the reference to Kay Bailey Hutchison and i said well implement one in texas so i think a woman can probably win. The last election was an 80s and 90s. I didnt emphasize gender that much because of that issue and the two women that were so accomplished that run on that issue so i didnt. I would just say, but speak to these big rooms of steelworkers and someone would affect question id say look last time i checked half the voters were of men so if i was just running as obama and i wouldnt when. Everyone goes yeah. I said im running on my record. Im across the prosecutor and what i want to do for the state of minnesota. At the end of the election when i won by an overwhelming margin one of the newspaper editors or reporters pat lopez who writes for the Minneapolis Star Tribune noticed i had it didnt mean that i didnt have a lot of women support. I had a group that had a lot to me so we could do a lot in terms of Gathering Women support. Host we have a Record Number of women serving in the u. S. Senate now but its only 20 and in fact thereve been fewer than 50 women elected to the senate in the history of our country. Its really remarkable. The 20 women who are now in the senate do you think women senators tend to behave differently than the male senators . Guest i do. Theres a study that shows when senators tend to sponsor chippers bills that there are more bipartisan than it anecdotal. Time and time again whether it was Susan Collins giving a major speech, was the first democrat to join or we put together a group of 142 and the shutdown which was at the eventually adopted by the leaders. Weather was Debbie Stabenow on the farm vellore Barbara Mikulski or patty murray on the budget or Barbara Boxer working with Mitch Mcconnell last month to get a transportation bill done. We passed a senate bill out of the u. S. Senate. A lot of times we see the women showing this kind of leadership and theres a lot more trust since there are only 20 of us. We have of course are every other month dinners and what we say about the men never goes out of the room and of course we never talk about them. Im just kidding. I think thats an important part of the senate. Host of course the country is never elected a woman to National Office of the sarah palin was elected to the republican ticket. Carly fiorina is running in the gop race at this time. To what degree do you think gender is a factor in the National Race . Guest i think, i go to the governor level 1. Its been difficult for women to win and those kinds of jobs. We have gotten and but in the senate. First theres a money issue. A lot of men get money to men and a lot of men are in business so the more we get women in business i think that will be to our advantage in the second piece of it is that sometimes voters are a leap to think of the woman and i cut a mans heart were also if you think the percentage of women as governor and then of course a womens president has not been achieved in those achieved in many other countries. I think the time is right and i think the time has come and i think people are starting to see more and more women in leadership roles. They want their own daughters to be in leadership roles and that changes the thinking. Host Hillary Clinton, you are a supporter in her president ial campaign and she has had some challenges. Do you think sexism is behind some of the criticism of her oars the same kind of criticism she would be getting if she were a male . Guest she has gotten criticism but thats not fair and that is happen to everyone. I think the key is again what do you do with it and how do you move on . I say in the book about how sometimes low expectations were people think and she really do this job and then you have that debate or speech where you show you know your stuff and you almost can be to your advantage if you do or write. The second thing in the book i talk about is the harassment issue. It goes on all over the country that must be taken seriously and so many races where patty murray is called the mom in tennis shoes or Claire Mccaskill gives the opponent talking about rape as is somehow the fault of the woman. You know what joe demint, legitimate rape is what they call it. We go back through those things you see that they started to boomerang and it hurts the phone at two says the things that i had someone to work through the opponent called me up prom queen queen and daddy schoolgirl. No one even noticed it because i did make a big deal out of it. The point is either no one notices it is so minor and unnecessary and you dont think you need to bring it up but if you do it him or angst. I think some of that is behind us but the real challenge to me is the thing that so hard to define when you are a minority whether you are a racial minority or a minority woman. Only 20 of us in the senate. Was i not included in the gang to work on the group because there are no women in it and they wanted to hang out with each other or is it they pick people that they wanted to have in the group . Its really hard to define those things. Sheryl sandberg has talked a lot about that in lean and in some the collins columns she has written and thought being kept out of the room and having to assert yourself to get anagram. Thats the level of readership and i do not discount some of the harassment that still going on. I think when you get at the leadership level that is where the fighters and thats where it gets to the president ial level. Make sure we are calling people and we dont exclude women from the decisionmaking world. Host one of the things we have seen with women candidates is handling sexist charges oregon set names in a different way. There is less inclination to ignore it and in more of an inclination to bring it to the forefront. Host guest it home ranks. In my case i was 30 some points ahead so i wasnt talking about my opponent at all. I think when people see it for what it is it actually helps candidates. Its viewed as a mistake when someone says Something Like that. Host thinking about Hillary Hudson she is involved involved or a mouse exclusively when she was secretary of state. You think this is a serious issue that she needs to address more seriously versus the passing firestorm . What is your view of . Guest its clearly been a focus in this last summer and media focus and i think she has responded seriously. She understands when there are requests for the server she has complied. She has voluntarily given 55,000 emails. She has acknowledged that she takes responsibility for what happened and that is her responsibility. She has agreed to a hearing in front of the house of representatives which arent exactly her friends allowed these people so she was publicly ask questions about it. Think when you combine the rue review of the email and the release of the emails by the state department with the public hearing with her words of responsibility my hope is one all of that is completely and then move to some of the major differences between her and some of the people on the republican side who are talking about deporting kids that were born in this country were talking about building a wall to canada or saying things like one of the problems for American Workers is they are working hard enough. The work she is doing on trying to change or Campaign Finance laws and the process of the economic progress she has made. Host you in the same senate class as Bernie Sanders the senator from vermont who has i think exceeded just about everybodys expectations perhaps including his own in his president ial bid. Why do you think his struck a chord . Guest Bernie Sanders speaks to the heart and i came into the senate with him. We worked together and im not really that surprised to casilla someone that has always had a strong grassroots following. I just look at this as not as a negative. I look at it as a positive that we have a robust interesting primary going on. I think Hillary Clinton meant what she said that it wasnt going to be a coronation that there would be debates and contested primaries. That is whats happening and i will say there are major differences between the democratic side on the republican side. I see more cemeteries similarities but i dont see a task that is so caustic. I dont see her candidates as donald trump did Lindsey Graham putting their cell phone numbers out on tv for example. Thats more than a prank. So these kinds of things i think are important as we go forward and we get to one candidate on our site to unify the party. Host if you want to have a robust interesting party would be boosted by having Vice President biden brown. But it sure political gut tell you . Guest i just dont know. I have a lot of respect for the Vice President. He has come to my state many times and i think hes going to have to make his own decision based on what he wants to do and as he has said publicly what his family wants him to do. Host you know you mentioned Jesse Ventura earlier in the conversation and he was in his way of predecessor of donald trump. An outsider who manages to get the attention of the support of a lot of voters. We will see what happens with donald trump. What is behind you think Donald Trumps surprising appeal on the republican side to be sure that with a lot of americans . Guest as i point out in my book i was actually at the frontline when jesse first got elected when he had signed in the back of the line to the brave. I was running for the county prosecutor and he was running for governor. We somehow got at the back of the parade and his people had signs that said retaliate in 98. That sentiment captures how some people are understanding institutions. There are people that are mad at business and there are people that feel left behind. You can see that with a income inequality and whats happening in the country. I think in that way that is fueled some of this, the donald trump for now my mouth but i think its real in terms of how people are feeling. As i said earlier i want to get to the debate stage because i want to have the candidates talk about what are your Real Solutions here between the two parties and what will really help these people . The other thing i would say about jesse and chomp is that jesse came out divan. He was running a Good Campaign throughout the year but he really didnt touch people until after the state fair and at minnesota that is at the end of august in case you didnt catch it. Then the other thing is that jesse while he was certainly provocative he didnt quite say the things about his opponents in the same way that trump does so i would say there are some comparisons but a lot of differences. Host do think its possible that donald trump will be the president ial nominee . Guest anything is possible and i dont rule anything out that i think the fact that he now has said that he would not run as an independent which is of course what ventura did. He was that way when there were Party Candidates on either side and now he will be running in a republican primary. I think that will be quite a path for him. Host your book is called sub four. What does that mean . Guest in a bit that in part because i wanted to bring back the idea of representing your neighbor. If you can get elected by your neighbors to the city council or the u. S. Senate you go would represent your neighbors and you ought to them to act like a neighbor. If you have someone next to you that you dont always agree with ann and a birder you dont really like do that you have chosen to live next to you have to dance to get along. Thats not what has happened in washington. Make the case that there are a lot of good people that lived left there for good reasons and i tell some stories of getting bills done working across the aisle. Whether senator hoeven or senator mccain and then i make the case we owe it to our neighbors in the citizens we represent not to act like but to find that Common Ground. Host you talk about in the way of redefining what political courage is. We think of political courage as someone standing up for their principles but you make the argument that these days it takes more courage to be willing to make it. Guest it does not use examples like Lindsey Graham even though he would have never picked them. He got a lot of grief on the right to better when i came out for a certain kind of public option and i thought it should be a competitive public option when it came to the Affordable Care act which of course i supported. I got grief on the left for that so the there are example after example of people who show courage in my mind when they are willing to stand next to someone that they dont rise agree with and come up with a compromise instead of going to a chamber and giving a speech alone. That is turned out in these recent days to be easy to do. What is hard to do with your own basis to find a way he can reach Common Ground. Host a lot of americans i think that washington and they say its a dysfunctional capital. How does the ability and the willingness to make compromises to get things done, how did that get lost and is there a way to bring it back . Guest i think first of all the way the money works is detrimental to compromise because of the independent expenditures with Citizens United which is why i support a constitutional amendment anything we can do to reverse that decision the money tends to go to individuals who give to candidates who want you to get done. That happens all the time. The money tends to go to the extremes and they want it to be there and they dont want you to to crossover so thats a really big problem. The second problem is the way it works now with social media. Thats why we get a lot of our messages to our citizens but rumors and things spread from one side or another, sometimes written by sponsor groups and also the media. Not every discussion is like this. On our cspan appearance today a lot of the discussions are screaming at each other going back and forth. You get a lot of attention when you act like that and when you tend to be more conciliatory and it doesnt mean you dont stand your ground. One of the things i love in david rooks new book is talking about what moderation means. Its not necessarily the middle. Its not necessarily the character talking about dwight eisenhower. John mccain doesnt necessarily have that potter character by whether in politics you can see inside the other persons views whether or not you can put yourself in their shoes and try to figure out where the point of Common Ground is. Its this idea that you can stand your ground but look or Common Ground and i think that has been missing and i think some of it involves the way politics is no longer lets try to figure this out. Every single thing we do is covered in a second mom buzzfeed boards leaked in a tweak. Its unbelievable so its harder to find those moments yet as i say in the book there are some Great Stories of people. We have a roadmap for the next president. It got done in the senate and that was not easy. You have the recent infrastructure bill that i just brought up that is a great example so you have those examples. I go through my own personal experiences with that is what was others and i think its important or citizens to know that happens him or were bad. Host in the wake of the Supreme Court decisions and Citizens United with an impressive amount of money being sent and we are not sure whos putting the money up, when you are a u. S. Senator you and your colleagues so much time and attention is the prospect of raising money for your next campaign. How big of a role does that play in your daytoday life . Guest both of my races for about 1 million that i had to raise. Sounds daunting but its nothing like some of these independent expenditures of 50 to 70 million. I tell the story in there that for me i started having never raised more than 500 a person had suddenly having to raise 10 million that i literally ends up having to i tried to call people and no one called me back. They couldnt pronounce my name and i said i gave it up in august. Every old address book i could find in my first race for senate. I actually raised 17,000 from an exboyfriend. As my husband points out its not so you are given an environment and you have to find a way to survive. I do not let it dominate my days. Ive been fortunate enough to have strong campaigns with grassroots orientation that it made a difference but have reached out a lot across the aisle and i had to have those major partisan warfares but thats not to say for those races, you have to be up for the fight. Host you mentioned how franken prank called you at your read your book. When you selected some of Senate Leaders gave you some advice noting that you are the Senior Citizen the senator for minnesota but with a celebrity you might face challenges. Guest ive been there for two years and i had just gotten used to being the senator. Suddenly now im the senior senator and the other senators a celebrity. Host who was that he came and talked you . Guest schumer and durbin. Chuck schumer has had Hillary Clinton as his other senator and durbin has had barack obama so they told me the stories of what it was like. Its not as easy as you think with your constituents asking them to take pictures of them. Al and i get on the plane and the Flight Attendant indicates that shes on the south. While i will be we have celebrities on the plane. Mr. And mrs. Al franken. Everyone laughs and then she said and ill max is no shes the other senator. The Flight Attendants as how cool is this, husbandandwife senators. Its never easy. Host i have to say thats the worst southern accent. Congress is dealing with the iranian deal. It looks like the president isnt guaranteed to put it into effect. Are you a supporter of the iran nuclear deal, you comfortable with the idea that this very important agreement will go into effect because a minority of the senate is willing to bet back it even though majority of the Congress Opposes it. Guest i think first of all there was an agreement made, a bipartisan agreement between senator corker in senator cardin about the rules of the game and how this is going to work and that like any other vote in the senate is the major issue. The vote is basically a 58 vote threshold. Thats how works for Supreme Court nominees and mage or pieces of legislation that is how it is work since i got in. Have i propose changing out . Yeah i would like to but those were the rules that were set. I think that is the answer to it and if you have what it looks like we are going to have i dont know what the exact number will be what it will be over 40 senators that are true but this agreement and can put it forward as a motion to improve it would not get up to 50. If you put it, im sorry if you put it as a motion to disapprove it would not get over the 60 vote threshold if he had enough senators opposing it. If you did it as a motion to approve however you did it you wouldnt get to those numbers. Not only that it was negotiated with republicans about what that process would need. We have followed that process so that would be my first answer. The second is that this was an agreement that the president made. Congress got iran to the table with the sanctions and i think thats why you are seeing congressional involvement. Technically the congressional boatmens would not have to take face. I thought was very important. Wayne made an agreement on how we should do it. The last thing i would say is there will be a bipartisan agreement on another passage of proposals, more security in tracing the money that goes back to iran and other things but im hoping we will have. Host american so get this debate and see just about every republican on the nuclear deal and every democrat is going to supported although there are democrats were not and is that an issue that you think would inevitably is led among partisan lines and what does it say about our politics . Guest i think Foreign Policy has not been partisan bipartisan. You certainly see with issues about eight although you have some republicans going with the what used to be and foreign aid is important to our country security. You two have again people come together postsides agree on a process and part of that is going in and it might break down party lines. I wouldnt go back for that fundamental reason that the idea that we could come up with a process that was bipartisan and im hoping after the vote there would be a package of things that are bipartisan bipartisan. Traditionally that has been important to our country that Foreign Policy has been more bipartisan. Host funding the government would break along partisan lines. We have groundhog day in september and of course the government is not funded for the fiscal year that starts october 1. But you think are the odds there would be another Government Shutdown this bob . Guest im hopeful. Ive heard from the Republican Leaders and i know there are some people like senator cruise that have played an instrumental role role. That didnt go that well in terms of the reaction of the american people. There was about but that shouldnt happen again and i believe about setting. I saw Mitch Mcconnell said in issuing planned parenthood you would need a new president to do that. Think thats acknowledgment that if that was given as a reason to shut the government down but that probably wouldnt work. Im hoping that means that therell be some pragmatism here we saw it in the negotiations on the highway bill that we recently had. We saw pragmatism and i played that Speaker Boehner and nancy pelosi because she did that doctor six with a negotiated payment so my hope is we can get through this and come up with an agreement. That being said on our side we think its pretty important that you have, that we try to change the legislation that we try to do something that is fiscally responsible but involves the military in domestic side. We have done so much of our budgeting and ive supported some these cuts that they had been Something Like 31, 41 cuts to revenue. All of the bipartisan work done would suggest things like 11 organ more likely 21 cuts to revenue. We have exceeded that with cuts to revenue. In the longterm looking at taxa form and how we are going to move the country forward we need to get in that range if we reduce our deficit. Host there are five senators running for president for republicans and one democrat. Does it have an effect on the debates who will see this bob . Guest i think it does because you see Mitch Mcconnell dealing with people running for president who has ted cruz back in december called everyone back and i tell the story in a book called everyone back when both leaders go home to boat on Immigration Reform and half of his own party and supposing it including mcconnell. Whatever you think about the issue that was an issue that was not going to be the tour is that we had some important things to do but confirming very important decisions in and the u. S. Government. We had and of the year bills that have to be passed and we were off doing that. That was to make a point and not to get something done. I think he is seen out time and time again on some of these issues including some of the issues with the important changes that had to be made to the patriot act with rand paul. The way its done with tv ads and the capital blowing up comes to a sunday showdown is defined defined designed for a president ial campaign of governing. Host you were marching in a labor day parade in minnesota. Where is back . Guest where is that . Guest theres a paper mill host there were people on the sidelines shouting klobuchar for president. What do you think about that . Guest i love my job right now and that is why i call it in the book the center next door. There are a lot of people running for president im happy doing my job. Host i would say i love my job or does not assure men ask statement. Guest im not running for president. If i wanted to i would call the book orange leader Something Like that. Host i was making a list of the next generation of democratic officeholders who might be considered running for National Office. You have Christine Gillibrand cory booker the new jersey senator and the California Attorney Kamala Harris in the castro brothers from texas now that secretary and member of the house. One thing that struck me was how diverse the group is. I didnt intend to make it diverse. Its just that everyone of the people i mentioned is either hispanic africanamerican or female. Do you think the time is come when democrats will no longer nominate a ticket to Nonhispanic White males . Are we a point where there will be an expectation of diversity and the National Democratic ticket . Guest id never want to say there has to be way but i think we are heading into that. That is a choice of our party but when you look at the Democratic Party and theres no doubt about this where it diverse party. Our policies bring a diversity Immigration Reform and support for that so i think you see a party that brings in new people. Its been a good party for women and a lot of the issues that women care about. The childcare should the family medical leave issue. Thats why i think youre going to see more diversity on the democratic ticket and i would be surprised indeed if we saw again what we have seen in the past. I think youll see a difference on the ticket. It was in the eyes like that because who picked a woman . Guest the only time there has been diversity on the National Democratic ticket. I was looking at the womens part of it. He is the only one. Host thinking about your political career as a county prosecutor and a u. S. Senator can you name one achievement that you say im so proud of the synthesis thing that im the most proud of as a political achievement . Guest i think it was the work we did on whitecollar crime and the fact that we basically decided cases are complex. Iran off the support of people and obviously we had major rigor cases and drug cases but i made the decision that a lot of his time was after 9 11 and the u. S. Attorneys office understandably was involved in one of the cases of the missing hijacker, the guy that was caught by some pilots in minnesota. They were focused on that so we took on more and more whitecollar cases jointly with event in our own office. I really believe that if whether its with a crowbar or a computer its still a crime and that those cases are complicated going after judge like we did when i was the chief prosecutor, a guy guy that stole imported thousand dollars from a mentally disabled woman. He was on the Second Highest Court in our state and i said then we do our job without fear or favor. We go after someone whether they are running a business or whether they are standing on the street honored dealing drugs. We made that a major emphasis and i realized it help not only to make the plunge stand that you cant have a system of justice when we would get convictions in windows cases but also had racial implications. You just close your eyes to those whitecollar cases mostly involving not all that mostly involving people were not of color and you are spending all of your time going after people of color contributes to the racial inequity in the system. I was also part of the work we did on doing a different way of photo identification working with the Innocence Project that turns out that it leads to less misidentification which is im a jerk problem. Work with different dna and other things we work hard to be fair in our system. I would always play this race game for the prosecutor brings it to me, should we go to trial . Water for the victim was white instead are part of the victim was a personal color . You want to try to be as colorblind as you can in these cases. Host fimian thinking about your career so far tell us what the biggest disappointment disappointment is, something where you say this is my regret. Guest the biggest regret i have right now from a policy standpoint is we havent been able to move some of these Prescription Drug bills. The job prices have been escalating. We had a situation where Drug Companies are now paying Generic Companies not to put their products on the market