MSNBC "Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

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So, does that mean this could actually pass?

Joining us tonight for the interview is Senator Amy Klobuchar of the great state of Minnesota.

Senator, thank you for being with us.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), MINNESOTA: Well, thank you so much, Rachel, and thank you for bringing up the drug shortage issue. It hasn`t gotten enough coverage. I`m actually carrying that bill in the Senate, which has bipartisan support as noted.

And that drug you mentioned, that was a drug that was denied for a little 4-year-old boy. He could not get that drug. He had leukemia, balding -- biggest smile in the world. It was finally located at the last
minute. His parents were planning to go to Canada to get him the treatment, not just the drug.

That`s what we`re dealing with here. So, I`m very glad the president did this today -- but the legislation is necessary because it`s actually going to require the manufacturers to let the FDA know when they see
shortages because this shouldn`t be on the backs of patients and pharmacists to spend hours calling around for the medication.

So, I`m glad you brought that up. It`s another example of something we should be able to get done. It has bipartisan support. The other, of course, is infrastructure. And --

MADDOW: Well, the -- let me stop you there on that issue, because the president making the action that he made today, doing this by executive order, also encouraging the movement of your bill in Congress. It`s a
little bit of an indictment of the Congress, something that has as much bipartisan -- can`t get through.

I mean, do you feel the complicit indictment that Congress is holding stuff is holding stuff that should not be held, is it a fair indictment?

KLOBUCHAR: Since August, since the people spoke out. Everyone heard it when they were home. There has been some progress. The patent reform bill America Invents Act passed. A number of other of things got through with -- that we had to get done with the extension of the FAA.

But some of these things that could save lives and move the economy forward are still sitting out and certainly infrastructure is one of them. This bill contains the infrastructure bank -- something that has garnered broad bipartisan support, leveraging public and private money so that we can build the infrastructure we need, whether it`s a waste water treatment planter, a pork processing plant in a town in southern Minnesota, or whether it is about major highways and bridges, which is the bulk of the money that would be with going to those as well as rail across our country.

I think I have seen you next to the Hoover Dam, Rachel, in some ads on your network and I think you get that this is about bold projects that you can`t do it alone in the private sector, that there are some reasons you get government involved and you look at what made the country great whether it is the Cross Continental Railroad or the highway system under Eisenhower.

If we are going to move to the type of export economy where we`re actually making stuff again, inventing things, exporting to the world, we need an air traffic control system that works. We need the roads. We need
the bridges. And no one knows that better than our state when you think of the bridge collapsing in the middle of the summers` day, in the middle of the Mississippi River.

And as I said that day that shouldn`t have happened in America. But that happened six blocks from my house. Dozens of people killed and dozen of cars submerged in water. And when you see something like that, it hits you at your core and you realize we cannot continue like this.

We cannot just pretend it`s not happening. We have to move forward and we have to get it done.

MADDOW: Thinking of the feasibility of getting this done -- obviously, the president has been stumping on the issue of infrastructure. In the past, it was not particularly partisan issue. I wonder if in Minnesota, in part because of the tragedy in 2007, I wonder if Minnesota has a more old-school approach to the issue politically if because of that tragedy. Maybe in Minnesota, you guys are talking about this in a less
partisan way in a way that might be a model for Congress.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, actually, in the wake of that tragedy, we did put some more money aside, the legislature did at that time. There was more put aside for infrastructure and we are continuing to move forward on
projects. But you still look at the national numbers, Rachel, 25 percent of the nation`s 600,000 bridges are found to be obsolete or structurally deficient. The American Academy of Civil Engineers has given our nation a near failing grade when it comes to infrastructure.

We know we have to move forward. We`ve got -- construction workers have one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country, and then you got people waiting in traffic 4.8 billion hours a year. That`s no way to run a railroad.

And so, that`s why you do find bipartisan support for these kinds of bills. We may not be able to pass it this week, but I`m hopeful by the end of the year, as part of a larger package, we can move forward on
infrastructure.

MADDOW: Democratic Amy Klobuchar from the great state of Minnesota, thanks so much for being here.

KLOBUCHAR: Happy Halloween, Rachel.

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