Surging Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Sunday defended her record on criminal justice when she was prosecutor in Minnesota, saying “what we know now is different from what we knew then.”
In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” Klobuchar — who raised $12 million in the wake of her third-place finish in the New Hampshire primary — said her time as prosecutor gave her “a deep understanding of the goods and the bads of the criminal justice system.”
“What we know now was not the same as what we knew then,” she said. “And I have always been an advocate for criminal justice reform.”
“We know that there is systematic racism in the criminal justice system and the answer is of course something that I worked on when I had that job before being in the Senate …diversifying the office,” she said. “It is doing things like videotaping interrogations... It is doing eyewitness ID in a different way that limits racial misidentifications.”
Klobuchar called rival and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s deep pockets “daunting,” but declared “I can beat him on the debate stage.”
“I do things like go on your show, take tough questions and then at the same time, he is running more ads on whatever he wants during that same time,” she lamented.
“He needs to go on shows like this, which he hasn't done,” she said. “He just can't hide behind the airwaves. He has to answer questions and of course, I think he should be on that debate stage, which eventually he will be, because I can't beat him on the airwaves but I can beat him on the debate stage."
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