Sen. Klobuchar, potential 2028 candidate, to accuse Trump of "unprecedented overreach" in speech tonight
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is set to give a speech on the rule of law and what she paints as President Trump's overreach on Wednesday night, as Democrats look to find effective messaging that will resonate with voters about the early days of the Republican's second term in the White House.
Excerpts obtained by CBS News ahead of the event hosted by The New Republic show Klobuchar, a leading Senate Democrat who has not ruled out a 2028 presidential run, plans to make the case that "Donald Trump is trying to remake the executive office into one that is immune from outside accountability."
"He's engaging in unprecedented overreach that disregards the rule of law and pretends as if the independent judiciary is a bug rather than a feature of our system," the Minnesota senator plans to say, according to the excerpts.
Mr. Trump's first months since he returned to the White House have found the president and his allies leaning heavily on executive power. His administration has clashed with Democrats over its attempts at curtailing spending already approved by Congress and has tangled with multiple federal judges over immigration.
Mr. Trump appeared to further underscore the tension between branches of government on Monday, when he posted on social media, "if we're not allowed to send the murderers and other criminals of every type, size, and shape, IMMEDIATELY out of our Country, we aren't going to have a Country anymore. Radical Left Judges and politicians don't care, but 90% of the people in the U.S.A. do. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will agree with this and, SAVE AMERICA!"
Klobuchar, who is the leading Democrat on the Senate's agriculture committee and served as the Hennepin County Attorney in Minnesota before being elected to Washington, is also expected to try to put a real-world face on what she views as the impact of tariffs during Mr. Trump's second term.
"Who's the roadkill with Trump's tariffs?" Klobuchar's excerpts show. "The small businesses. The small farmers. The consumers who are facing a $4,000 tariff tax."
Mr. Trump recently took to social media and defended his tariff policy, writing that "the very STUPID Democrats are doing everything within their power to disparage what is happening. They are totally unhinged, and have lost all levels of Confidence. It is a financial REVOLUTION, and they are being Crushed."
Minnesota's senior senator is viewed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, after a 2020 primary run that saw her finish a strong and surprising third in the New Hampshire primary only to face struggles expanding her base of support shortly afterward. Klobuchar has not indicated whether she will seek the presidency in 2028, but did not explicitly rule out running when asked by "Meet The Press" moderator Kristen Welker on Sunday.
Since her 2020 campaign, Klobuchar's political power has risen in Washington while she's also maintained a major focus on antitrust issues, a topic that is also interwoven into her approach during her upcoming remarks on Wednesday.
"We hear that phrase a lot these days – the rule of law. With our economy heading toward a cliff, you may ask – "Why is this important to me?" It's a legitimate question," Klobuchar is set to say Wednesday. "My answer? Everything we hold faith in across this country — including our economy — is glued together by law."
Klobuchar's speech comes as intrigue continues to swirl about who truly is the leader of the Democratic party after the setbacks the left faced in the 2024 election. Democrats are looking to chart a path forward after last fall's election saw the party lose the White House and Senate and fail to retake the House. At the same time, there's clear tension within the base of the party about the best way to politically challenge Mr. Trump after his convincing win in November.
Even though national Democrats struggled in 2024, the Minnesota senator is fresh off a strong political performance in her home state.
Last year, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris won Minnesota by more than 4 points, in what amounted to a surprisingly close result in a state that has not voted for a Republican for president since Richard Nixon in 1972. Klobuchar in turn performed far better than the top of the Democratic ticket in Minnesota as she successfully ran for a fourth term, winning around 135,000 more votes than Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
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