United States

2020 Hopeful Amy Klobuchar Tackles Healthcare, Immigration Reform and Trump at NH Event

Democratic presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar discussed President Donald Trump, her upbringing and her ambitions if she were to be selected in office during her speech on Monday at a Politics & Eggs event in New Hampshire.

The U.S. Senator said she announced her candidacy during a major blizzard in February to prove she has tenacity.

"I decided I wanted to make a point in a New Hampshire fashion," she said. "That I have grit, that I’m coming from a different place and running for this office. I’m someone who has been an underdog in several races but have always won, every single one."

Klobuchar spoke from the New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester. She is the latest Democrat to speak at the event, which is considered a right of passage for those with presidential ambitions.

"I stand before you today as the daughter of a teacher and a newspaper man, as the first woman elected to the Senate from the state of Minnesota and a candidate for president of the United States," she said. "That is what this country to me is about. That, no matter where you come from, no matter who you know, that you can make it in America."

NBC10 Boston asked Klobuchar if she was disappointed in 2% polling in Iowa.

"We've been around that level. It was not a surprise with all the people in the field at all," she said. "For me, I look at it as I guess the glass half full. I'm number six in a field of 24 people."

Andy Smith of the UNH Survey Center says New Hampshire could be a better state for Klobuchar than Iowa.

"Because we have very high turnout. You get way beyond just the activists voting," said Smith.

Before the Democrat discussed challenges she's ready to take on as president, she spoke about Trump.

"I am so concerned every single day about what this president is doing to fracture this community," she said of how Trump impacts those who have dreams.

She said it is unacceptable that the president "Tweets out mean stuff" about immigrants, people of color and people in his own party when they disagree with him.

Restoring the heart of the democracy is the heart of her campaign, Klobuchar said. She is also focusing on bettering infrastructure, income inequality and an immigration reform, which she said she sees as an economic necessity.

"I look at the past of America, where so many of our entrepreneurs were immigrants," she said. "Seventy of our Fortune 500 companies right now are headed up by people born in foreign countries."

"Immigrants don't diminish America, they are America," she said.

Moving on to the subject of health care, Klobuchar said she is ready to take on pharmaceutical prices. 

"They have been left, in my mind, to do pretty much whatever they want," she said of pharmaceutical companies.

She said such prices have spiked dramatically and cited insulin as an example. She then spoke about a restaurant manager who began to ration insulin after he turned 26 and was taken out of his parent's health care plan, which ultimately led to his death.

During her most recent trip to New Hampshire, the 2020 hopeful addressed the ongoing opioid epidemic. She shared a personal story and revealed she grew up with an alcoholic father.

Klobuchar said she plans to prioritize mental health and create a plan to combat addiction as one of the central issues of her presidential campaign. 

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