Amy Klobuchar on abortion pill ruling: ‘Unbelievable’

(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., called a judge’s ruling rescinding FDA approval of an abortion pill “unbelievable.”

Three Trump-appointed judges “should not be making the decision for women across the country,” Klobuchar said on This Week.

“What is going to be next? Is that judge going to not like birth control pills? Are we going to have a judge that doesn’t like [cholesterol medication] Lipitor? There’s a reason that Congress gave the FDA the power to make these decisions about safety.”

Klobuchar said if the Supreme Court upholds this decision, women will be “harmed.”

“It’s women that are going to have to take a bus across the country from Texas to Minnesota or to Illinois. That’s the problem right now,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar said abortion access and laws will be a central issue for voters in the 2024 election.

On Dianne Feinstein’s absence

When asked about her colleague Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and has been absent from the Senate for months due to shingles, Klobuchar said Feinstein made the “right decision” to temporarily step off of the committee.

But Klobuchar does not support the current calls from House Democrats for Feinstein to resign due to her absence.

“As for the long term, many people have been out as you know, for periods of time when they’re sick, and they have come back. In this case, we are going to need her vote on the Senate floor eventually. We have things like the debt ceiling coming up. But I think what we need to do is take her at her word,” Klobuchar said.

After the United States reached its borrowing limit in January, the country was thrown into a political standoff, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing about how Economists at Moody’s Analytics currently project the “X date,” defined as the day the Treasury Department will run out of money, to be Aug. 18.

Still, Klobuchar acknowledged that Feinstein’s absence “is going to become an issue as the months go by” if the senator does not return.

“​​This isn’t just about California. It’s also about the nation. And we just can’t with this one-vote margin and expect every other person to be there every single time,” Klobuchar said.

The Minnesota Democrat says she expects Feinstein to return to the Senate, saying “it sure better happen before the debt ceiling vote.”

“I sure hope not because that is against the precedent of the Senate and how we’ve run things,” Klobuchar said when asked if Republican senators will block a vote to appoint another Democratic senator to the Judiciary Committee, which will likely happen this week.

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