WASHINGTON _ Laying out 100 actions she would take in the first 100 days if she were elected president, Sen. Amy Klobuchar pledged Tuesday to reverse President Donald Trump's rollback of environmental agreements and regulations and go further than former President Barack Obama in battling high drug prices and raising federal contractors' wages.
"On day one, we will get back into the International Climate Change Agreement and restore the Clean Power Plan and work to bring back the gas mileage standards. Those are things you can do without passing a law," Klobuchar said at the National Press Club.
The Minnesota Democrat, who is touting herself as a midwestern pragmatist in a field of coastal liberals, said there were "things that can get done right now, without waiting on the Republican leaders."
The list includes closing tax loopholes; stopping the so-called practice of "pay for delay," through which pharmaceutical companies pay to keep cheaper generics off the market; and updating the antitrust standards for reviewing corporate mergers. She also pledged to end the domestic and global gag rules surrounding abortion counseling, and to ensure funding for Planned Parenthood.
"Let's increase the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour _ something you can do in the first 100 days _ while we work to pass an increase to the federal minimum wage in year one," she said.
Klobuchar called the steps "sprints" toward the larger legislative marathons _ passing climate change legislation, a major infrastructure bill, healthcare cost reductions and economic relief _ on her agenda.
"When they vote on Nov. 3, 2020, the American people will once again be demanding results," she said.
Klobuchar called tweets by Trump aimed at a fellow Minnesotan, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and other freshman women in the House "reprehensible and racist." But she said she wants to get past the president's use of rhetoric as a tool for division and focus on Trump's "unmet promises" to the American people.
Asked by a reporter whether Trump supporters are invigorated through racial animus, Klobuchar said she sees Trump voters as being motivated by feeling left out of the economy, rather than racism.
"You vote for change, and that's why in the debates, I was surprised that more of my colleagues didn't do this, but ... I think it's important to make the case, not only for an optimistic economic agenda, which I've been doing and I've done today, but also for these unmet promises," she said. "So I think you have to do both things.
"I don't think they're all racist by any means," she said of Trump supporters.
