🔰Increased threats against elected officials is a ‘rampant problem’: Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Joining us now is Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. Condolences to you, Senator Klobuchar, all your colleagues, everyone there in Minnesota. I know both legislators were close friends of yours, and especially Speaker Hortman. Tell us about her. You know, Melissa Hortman was a woman that I wish everyone around the country knew. When you think about a true public servant who goes into it for the right reasons, it's Melissa. You know, she started out as a mom with little kids. She was working at her dad's used auto parts company. And I got to know her then, and I saw how she doorknocked and knew practically every person in her district. She was able to juggle being a Sunday school teacher, being a Girl Scout leader, training service dogs for veterans. And she and Mark, and I think of their kids today on Father's Day, they lost their mom and their dad. They were able to juggle it all, and maybe that's what helped her be this incredible legislator who worked her way up to Speaker of the House, who helped lead the efforts to pass this incredible work on paid family leave, where Minnesota is on the map in such a big way to help people, or free school lunch, or the work she just did this last year with the governor, where we had a literally tied legislature. And she and her Republican counterpart, another woman, were able to negotiate a budget and get that done so we didn't go into government shutdown in a very difficult time. She was a true leader and loved her work, but was always so grounded and such a decent person. I think that's probably the best word to describe her. You look at her pictures and you know what she was about. So we miss her greatly, and so when you hear about statistics about political violence and threats, I just want people to know who we're talking about. Or Senator Hoffman, who is equally respected, got into politics because his daughter has spina bifida and she couldn't get insurance, and he wanted to advocate for her. Decent people who didn't deserve this to happen to them at two in the morning in the middle of the night when all they're doing is trying to represent the people that they were elected to represent. And Senator, the suspect, still at large. What more can you tell us about the investigation and whether or not they believe they are zeroing in on this man? And tell us more about him. Sure, Martha. I hope you show his picture because the FBI and law enforcement is asking the public, if they see this guy, do not approach him. He's evil. He is smart. He has killed without a second thought. And there's a $50,000 award. One of the most chilling pictures for me is the one that was taken right before he killed my friends. Right at the, with a simple. The ring camera. Right. And it just shows he was wearing a mask and that, but they wanted people to see that. There's another picture of him in a cowboy hat afterward. And he's someone that was able to soup up a police car, talk his way into making them think he was in law enforcement, dressed like law enforcement. And so what I know is that for a while they had, they thought they had him pinned down in a certain area near the murders. Now they are just following every lead, asking for the public's help. We couldn't be getting more help from law enforcement. And the one thing that I've noted is that when they came on to the local cops, came onto the crime scene of Senator Hoffman, they didn't just stay there. They went and they thought, wow, we better check on the speaker. She they had already been shot, but then they were able to get information about who this person was because they had the foresight to go to the scene of her home, having no idea if anything had happened there. That has allowed them to do better at knowing who he was and asking for the public help. So those local police officers at that moment not only appear to have saved Senator Hoffman and his wife's life, but also it's given us major leads to who he was and why he was doing this. And give us a sense of the political motivation that people have have talked about. Governor Walz, you have too. What is the motivation there? As far as you can tell from writings from the suspect, if in fact he is captured, what about that list? So I obviously haven't seen any of this and can't confirm exactly what's in it, but there are some signs he had included on the list. And this has been reported that the list isn't out. And I believe that there are some things in the manifesto that would lead you down that trail to believe that this was one of his motivating forces. Now, we're not certain if that was the only thing. Maybe he had somehow known these two legislators. Maybe there were other reasons, but that is clearly one of them. But it may not be the only one. I will also say that it wasn't just the governor and I. We joined with the Republican members of Congress in our delegation, our entire congressional delegation in Minnesota. Congressman Emmer and myself and others, Senator Smith, Representative McCullum and the rest of our delegation actually joined in a statement and said, we speak with one voice to condemn this political violence. There's no place for this politically motivated violence in our democracy. And when you look at all the threats and the increase in threats against elected officials, something like seventeen hundred back in 2016 and now we're up to nine thousand. This is a rampant problem that the public and all of us have to deal with and also against judges. And all of us should condemn all of that violence. We thank you for joining us this morning. And again, condolences to all. Thank you, Martha.