The following is a transcript of an interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Dec. 15, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. Good to have you here.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Great to be back on Margaret, thanks.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Senator, I do want to ask you about these drones on the East Coast, because we looked at your record and you actually co-sponsored legislation a few years ago trying to expand authorities to deal with them. Why do you need an act of Congress to deal with this, and why didn’t the Democrats move on it?
SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Well, first of all, the administration has repeatedly assured people that they are safe. However, one, we need a briefing for the members of the Senate to figure out what’s going on here. Two, we need more transparency and three, I appreciated some of the Congressman’s words, because what he is talking about is we need to have a new regulatory rules in place here. Right now, you have to register a drone if it’s over a half pound, and there are penalties if you don’t do that. Well, I think we have to make sure that regime is enforced with local and state authorities, and then we’ve got to figure out, do we really want all these drones, because while these may be safe, who knows what happens in the future, and they have to be within 400 feet, so these things are going to be what? Flying over people’s family picnics and over their homes and over beaches? Like this is not going to be a good future if we see too many of these. So I think I was pleased that he said he wanted to move forward on some rules and finding a way to regulate these in a better way, because this just can’t be. No one knows why this huge drone is right over their house.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you might bring this up in the new Republican controlled Senate?
SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Moving on. You sit on the Judiciary Committee, so you’re going to have a key role in overseeing law enforcement under the Trump administration, and you’ll get to question his selectee to run the FBI Kash Patel, who has published in his book a list of enemies, vowed retribution. I want to play something for you that Republican Senator Murkowski said just a few days ago.
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI: The approach is going to be, everybody toe the line. Everybody line-up. We got you here, and if you want to survive, you better be good. Don’t get on Santa’s naughty list here, because we will primary you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That is a remarkable thing for a Republican senator to say on the record, as clearly as she said. She said they are being threatened if they don’t get in line and vote for some of these nominees. Are you getting the sense from your Republican colleagues on judiciary they will get in line and vote through Kash Patel?
SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Sadly, there is some of that going on, but then you have other people, like Lisa Murkowski, who has always been a thoughtful, independent voice. She believes her job is to do what our Constitution tells us, advice and consent, and also that we take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. So we have to do our due diligence and make decisions. I voted for a number of the past Trump nominees for many different jobs. I looked at them and decided if I thought they were qualified, and could they perform the mission of the agency, and did they have integrity? That’s what has to happen here. And so when you look at someone like Kash Patel, who would be replacing Christopher Wray, who I believe embodied- he was a Trump appointee, went through Biden and embodied the mission of the FBI, which is fidelity, bravery, integrity. And so now you have someone who says he’s on a revenge mission when we should be on a national security safety mission here, when we look at cyber security attacks that you just talked to the congressman about and various other things. He says he wants to dismantle the FBI headquarters and turn it into a museum. To me, this is not the direction we need to go. So I appreciate Senator Murkowski’s words and also her demand and other Republicans. It’s going to be their decisions on these nominees. We may vote against them or for them, but in the end, it’s their decision to demand for FBI reports and making sure that these are not recess appointments and there must be open hearings.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right because they have enough votes, essentially, to move on these on their own. I want to ask you about President Biden. This past week, he had this record number of commutations, 1500 Americans more than any president in any single day. Among them, though, there was a judge involved in a so called “Cash for kids” scheme–
SEN. KLOBUCHAR: I did not like that one. Nope.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –that sent thousands to jail for millions of dollars, a man who committed tax fraud at a cost of more than $1.6 billion described as “the most prolific, pernicious, utterly unrepented tax cheat in U.S. history,” a woman who was involved in a $26 million scheme to defraud Medicare. Are you comfortable with some of these decisions?
SEN. KLOBUCHAR: No. There’s also a man in Duluth that was running a major drug house, basically, and had all this money under his bathroom tiles was also commuted. So the way I look at is this- I also didn’t agree with the pardon of the president’s son. I also have not agreed with a number of pardons that President Trump gave. So I believe, and I’ve long advocated for this, that while the pardon ability is part of our Constitution, we’re not going to change that right? Go way back to President Lincoln, who made hard decisions himself about deserters from the army, things like that. That’s been going on a long time, but we should have some kind of an outside board that governors have. Governors have the ability to give mercy to people after years have gone by, but a lot of them have boards that make recommendations and other things, instead of people just doing it in the middle of the night and people in the White House. This makes no sense to me–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, this is what was so surprising, because the White House described it as just based on a broad category and not the specifics of the case. Was that prudent?
SEN. KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. And so, I have no doubt there were some righteous pardons in this group. Okay, let’s say that. Now I believe that there were, but there were a number that I think make no sense at all. So instead of doing a whole category, why don’t in a coming year before the end of a president’s term, if that’s when they’re mostly going to do these, that a board looks at these and looks at them individually, when people petition for them based on the facts, instead of just in a large group. So large groups have been done before, I believe, but I just, I think that this whole process cries out for reform, because otherwise you undermine the justice system. And again, I emphasize, this also happened in a big way under President Trump, and you undermine the work of these line FBI agents, these line prosecutors who have taken on these cases, followed the sentencing guidelines and made a decision. Might you want mercy 10 years later? Yes, you might. But let’s at least look at these on a factual basis and a risk basis, instead of just in the middle of the night a month before a president leaves.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Klobuchar, thank you for being here today.
SEN. KLOBUCHAR: It was great to be on Thank you, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll be right back with a lot more face than nation. Stay with us.