Klobuchar on the GOP‘s massive budget bill

The next stop for President Donald Trump’s backed budget bill is the U.S. Senate.

The Republican backed measure incudes tax cuts, more money for border security, and about $1 trillion less being spent on Medicaid and food assistance programs.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk about what’s next for the bill and her meetings with Canadian officials.

The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Listen to the conversation by clicking the player above.

Let’s start with the budget bill

Unfortunately, this “big, beautiful bill,” as the President calls it, is really a big middle class betrayal. Minnesotans really should be looking at this because it got passed in the middle of the night, so no one really had an opportunity to see what was happening.

It takes health care away from over 8 million Americans in the form of Medicaid, and we know one out of two Minnesotans in nursing homes are on Medicaid. It takes food assistance away from over 4 million Americans. That money is being used to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest, like the wealthiest the point 1 percent will get a $250,000 tax break in a single year.

What we know from polling, and other things, 14 percent of Americans say, “no, you shouldn’t give a bunch of tax cuts to the wealthy and pay for it by cutting things like health care for regular people,” 58 percent of Americans say “what you should do is tax the tax the wealthiest more, and then use that money to either pay down the debt or help with things like child care and housing.” And that’s just not what this bill is about. It's $3 trillion in debt in 10 years.

Is it likely that Senate Republicans will try to change this bill? How much do you think could be in for a rewrite?

I think a lot. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, our neighbor in Iowa, has already said that he wants to see a redo. Those are his words. A redo of the agriculture portion of the bill, which involves grocery prices.

While grocery prices are so high, other senators, like Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, AR, has said that he will not be in favor of this bill if it has the Medicaid cuts. So I think you're going to see some major negotiations among Republicans in the Senate.

Our job is to point out, as I’m doing right now, what this bill does. Because all it takes is four Republicans to stand up in the Senate and say no to what it is — which appears to be happening right now. So then the bill gets changed. So that’s what’s going to be going on in the Senate in the next few months.

What roadblocks can Democrats put up to sidetrack this bill?

Well, there’s a lot of procedural things, but in truth, it's going to take four Republicans to vote against the bill. Right now, it appears that would happen.

What we’re going to be doing is continue to highlight, especially in Minnesota, some of these snap cuts. And what that is food assistance. That means farmers that are growing food, that sell it to be used in the food assistance, are going to get screwed. You’ve got the people who need the food in the communities. You've got grocery prices that have been going up and up and up, and so it makes it even more important.

You’ve got families that have parents, or grandparents, in assisted living on Medicaid. I remember when my dad, at the end of his life, was in assisted living. He had savings, but I knew the exact day those savings were going to run out, and then I had a plan because the place he was at didn’t take Medicaid.

I knew exactly what I was going to, where I was going to take him in on what day when that hit. And that's like a lot of families. It’s not just the people on Medicaid, which includes a whole bunch of kids with disabilities and veterans. It is also about the Medicaid within families, and what it does to them if their loved one has no place to go.

Sen. Klobuchar, you’re in Ottawa to meet with top Canadian officials. You’re talking tariffs. What have you learned so far?

We met with our new ambassador here just last night. But we’re actually the first delegation. It’s republican Sen. Kevin Cramer, ND. He and I head up the inter parliamentarian group. We’re the first members of any lawmakers that are going to be meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and all of their top officials.

The President and Prime Minister Carney had a positive meeting compared to many in the White House. It was a positive meeting, and we hope that is the basis for actually negotiating through these tariffs and getting to the other side.

This is our best ally in the world. They literally are the embassy that had friend, partner, ally, draped from the front of their embassy for years, and they are Minnesota’s biggest trading partner.

So we need to get this taken care of, or we’re going to be losing tourism from Canada. It's already happening. It's down by some accounts, 70 percent — they’re canceling trips, and we are going to be losing a lot of our supply chain.

So there is every reason both countries should be immediately coming to the table, using the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) to negotiate differences, and getting back to a place where we can do business together again.

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