Amy Klobuchar insisted Sunday morning that Donald Trump’s behavior amounts to a ‘global Watergate’ when arguing for the president’s impeachment.
‘This is something where the Founding Fathers themselves, James Madison said, the reasons we needed impeachment provisions was that he feared that a president would betray the trust of the American people to a foreign power,’ Senator Klobuchar told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday.
‘That is why this is proceeding. I see it simply as a global Watergate,’ she continued.
The impeachment proceedings against Trump, which were launched at the end of September, have been compared to the Watergate scandal, which led to former President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974 before he could be impeached.
Amy Klobuchar insisted Sunday morning that Donald Trump’s behavior amounts to a ‘global Watergate’ when arguing for the president’s impeachment
Nixon was nearly impeached because those within his administration oversaw a break-in to Democratic headquarters, which he attempted to cover-up in the aftermath. Klobuchar said Trump’s behavior was like that of Nixon’s, only on a larger scale.
‘That is basically what this president has done on a global basis,’ Klobuchar said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also said Trump’s actions were worse than Nixon’s.
‘It’s really a sad thing,’ Pelosi said in a November interview.
‘I mean, what the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did. And at some point, Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognize that this could not continue,’ she said of his decision to resign ahead of the House voting on impeachment.
If the Democratic-controlled House does vote to impeach the president, Klobuchar, a Minnesota senator and 2020 candidate, will be called back from the campaign trial to sit as a juror in a Senate trial over whether to remove the president from office.
‘I have many people out there for me if I can’t leave for a few weeks,’ Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash Sunday morning. ‘That includes my husband and daughter who are excellent campaigners. But it also includes all of our endorsers.’
In her Sunday morning television interviews, Klobuchar also went after her rich 2020 competitors, lamenting that she can’t compete with billionaire candidates who are able to throw millions of dollars towards ads that increase their visibility.
‘I’m not as well known,’ the Minnesota senator admitted when talking about her lackluster fundraising numbers on Meet the Press Sunday morning. ‘I’m never going to be able to compete with two billionaires, that is true. I’m not going to be able to buy this thirty-some million dollar ad buy.’
Klobuchar was referencing, specifically, Michael Bloomberg spending $34 million on a nation-wide ad launching his presidential campaign last weekend.
Bloomberg and billionaire Tom Steyer are both latecomer candidates to the Democratic primary.
In her Sunday morning television interviews, Klobuchar also went after her rich 2020 competitors (including Mike Bloomberg, pictured right), lamenting that she can’t compete with billionaire candidates who are able to throw millions of dollars towards ads that increase their visibility
Steyer was able to clench one of 10 spots at the November debate in Atlanta, Georgia – which was attributed to his ability to make his campaign extremely visible through ads – while several candidates who have been in the race for much longer weren’t able to qualify for the fifth debate.
Bloomberg, whose net worth is nearly $55 billion, is the latest candidate to join the running – bringing the steadily dwindling Democratic field back up to 19.
Klobuchar, whose total assets when combined with her husband’s amounts to somewhere between $736,025 and $1.99 million, said she was particularly insulted by Bloomberg’s entry.
‘I have admiration for the work that he’s done,’ Klobuchar told NBC News anchor Chuck Todd in reference to Bloomberg. ‘But I don’t buy this argument that you get in because you say ‘oh everyone else sucks.’ I just don’t.’
‘I think we have strong candidates,’ she continued. ‘I don’t think that any of the polling or the numbers show that people are dissatisfied with all their candidates. They’re just trying to pick the right one.’
She went on to make her case for why she is the best candidate.
During her stump speeches, Klobuchar often repeats the phrase: ‘We can’t afford to screw this up.’
While speaking with Dana Bash on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning, she explained that she meant the U.S. cannot afford another four years of Donald Trump.
‘If Donald Trump gets elected, shame on us,’ she said, adding that the Democrat who earns the nomination should be someone who will bring the country together.
Steyer and Bloomberg have come under fire from within the Democratic Party for their deep pockets and their ability to earn support in the primary, even though they announced several months after the rest of the field.
They have been accused of trying to buy the presidency by more progressive lawmakers, like freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and self-declared Democratic socialist senator and 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders.
Steyer, who is worth 1.6 billion, put millions of dollars into pro-impeachment advertisements for the first two years of Trump’s presidency. The ads primarily featured him speaking to the camera, which has increased his visibility among voters who consume television news.