CNN’s Jake Tapper Asks Klobuchar How Democrats Can ‘Stand Any Ground’ Against Trump Agenda In Senate
CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) how Democrats in the Senate can “stand any ground” against President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda if Republicans can pass it with a simple majority.
Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) plan to enact much of the Trump agenda by passing “one big, beautiful bill” using a process called budget reconciliation, which avoids the 60-vote threshold to overcome a Senate filibuster.
On Sunday morning’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Klobuchar made repeated references to Democrats “standing our ground” whenever possible, which led Tapper to observe, “I don’t know how much ability you will have to stand any ground” given the GOP’s plan:
KLOBUCHAR: If their plan is to simply move ahead and give tax cuts to a bunch of billionaires, as we just heard rumors that’s what was coming out of the Republican Caucus, that they want to immediately move to that, we’re going to stand our ground and hold them accountable for what they said, that they wanted to help average people in our country.
TAPPER: Well, let me ask you a question about that, because I don’t know how much ability you will have to stand any ground if Republicans go through with the plan that president-elect Trump and Speaker Johnson are talking about, which is to — one huge reconciliation package with not only the tax cuts you mentioned, but also energy — changes in energy law, also changes in laws when it comes to the border and immigration.
They want to do that in reconciliation. and to translate that for normal people out there…
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.
TAPPER: That means it would only need a simple majority vote in Senate, 51 votes, as opposed to the 60-vote threshold, which usually requires at least a modicum of bipartisan work to even, like, proceed to debate.
What are your thoughts on that?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, my thoughts are we have a number of Republicans in the Senate that do care about the debt, that don’t want to add to the debt, that actually take that job seriously.
When you look at some of these tax cuts for the wealthiest and the multimillions, trillions of dollars they could add to the debt, I’m not talking about people making under $400,000. I’m talking about the billionaires. And if that’s what they’re going to do, they’re going to add greatly to whatever — whatever they end up doing on spending. You’re still going to have a problem with the debt. And so what I see this as being for my Senate colleagues is a moment. This is a moment where they’re going to have to decide, are you going to just add to the debt and do everything Donald Trump tells you to do, or are you going to stand up on some of these things and say, wait a minute, we’re worried about the debt?
Our job as Democrats is to make that case, to pick our battles. We’re not going to pick every single battle. There will be some things that are red lines. But we’re in this. We’re in this in a big way. And there’s ways to make your case without being able to be the deciding vote.
We realize that we’re up against a lot with the votes. But we have a strong case to make about the debt, about their claims that they were going to stand up for average people. And tax cuts for billionaires and going after a newspaper for a poll in — that they don’t like, that the president didn’t like, the president-elect, in Des Moines, man, that is not going to help people with their health care costs.
It’s not going to help them with childcare. It’s not going to help them with housing. So our job is to hold them accountable and make the case that they have got to follow through on a bunch of the things they said in this election.
Watch above via CNN’s State of the Union.
