Sen. Klobuchar: I Am Tough On My Staff Because You Need to Be When Dealing With Putin

With presidential candidate and Sen.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) dealing with, sometimes wild, reports about mistreatment of her staff in the Senate, Klobuchar defended her management style — saying toughness is needed on the world stage.

“Your campaign was shaken up in the early days by multiple reports, negative reports about how you’ve treated your past at times. Your answer was, too, I can be too hard. What’s too hard,” CNN’s Poppy Harlow asked.

“Well, to me, if you are a boss, you have to have high standards. And that is what I have always and that doesn’t mean it’s a popularity contest all the time. So I’ve had high standards for myself, high standards for our staff, and mostly, I’m going to have high standards for the country,” Klobuchar replied.

“But one can always do better and that means you want to be sure that you are listening to people. If, you know, they felt that something was unfair or they felt bad about something, but I still think that you have to demand good product. When you are out there on the world stage and dealing with people like Vladimir Putin, yeah, you want someone who is tough,” she added. “You want someone that demands the answers and that is going to get things done. That’s what I’ve done my whole life.”

Harlow asked if the American public needs to be worried about her high staff turnover, much like with President Donald Trump.

“No. I point to the leadership in my office. My chief of staff has been with me something like five years. My state director, that’s our big position in the state, seven years,” Klobuchar said. “My campaign manager has been with me for 14 years. And I don’t think you see that kind of leadership in the White House right now.”

Watch above, via CNN.