Amy Klobuchar says there's a difference "between a plan and a pipe dream" for 2020 Democrats
Senator Amy Klobuchar says there's a difference "between a plan and a pipe dream" — and she thinks she knows which one can defeat President Trump. The Minnesota senator and 2020 presidential candidate sat down with CBS News' Caitlin Huey-Burns on her campaign bus in Iowa to discuss her campaign.
Klobuchar said she believes her moderate approach can prevail in 2020 — even as more progressive candidates, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, are dominating the polls.
"I think that what I've seen is there are people that are tired of the noise and nonsense and the extremes and they are looking for someone who has their back," Klobuchar told CBS News. "And they have a home with me, because I believe my ideas are better ideas. They're different ideas, but they're better ideas."
Klobuchar has been running as a centrist Democrat from America's heartland, arguing that this approach can win back the Midwestern states that Mr. Trump captured in 2016. "What I've said is I want to build a blue wall around those states — of votes — and make Donald Trump pay for it," she said.
Klobuchar has been consistently polling near the bottom of the Democratic field and she has so far not qualified for the November debate.
But Klobuchar's campaign raised more than $1 million in the 24 hours after this month's Democratic debate, where Klobuchar took aim at the tax and health care policies of Warren, a leading candidate. It was the Klobuchar campaign's best day yet for online fundraising.
Klobuchar told CBS News she respects Warren and Sanders as candidates and friends. But she doesn't believe their ambitious policy plans, like Medicare for All and free public college, will win moderate voters.
"I just don't think we should be paying for college for rich kids off the taxpayers of this country and I also don't think we should kick 149 million people off their current health insurance," Klobuchar says. She has instead campaigned on the idea of a public option for Medicaid and Medicare.
Klobuchar argued that the more progressive proposals might not even be accomplished — and voters will want to see results.
"That is the difference between a plan and a pipe dream," she said.