On an appearance on The View on Tuesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar received pushback from host Sunny Hostin.
In an intense interview via a satellite between New York and New Hampshire, Hostin grills Klobuchar's past as a prosecutor and insisted that she needs the Black vote to become a viable presidential candidate, reports the Daily Beast.
"You need African American support to become the Democratic nominee," Hostin told Klobuchar. "Your tough on crime approach when you were a county attorney in Minnesota is criticized for disproportionately harming Black and brown people, and when I look at that record, you know, you failed to prosecute a single killing by the police during the eight years you headed prosecutions, and there were more than two dozen police-involved killings in that period."
"How do you defend that record?" Hostin asked.
Sunny Hostin held Amy Khlobuchar accountable for her prosecutorial record!! I LOVE to see it. #TheView ya need the black vote and as Sunny says … this ain’t gone cut it pic.twitter.com/m9JpddezWi
— Vince J. Blige (@Vince_Aries) February 11, 2020
Klobuchar defended her record by stating she helped pass the First Step Act, which aims to lower the incarceration rates for African Americans.
"We all know there is systematic racism in this criminal justice system, there's no doubt about that," Klobuchar said. "But there is so much more work that we have to do, and that's why when I got to the U.S. Senate, I started working on things like the First Step Act, which we passed, which has decreased the criminal penalties and allowed some nonviolent offenders to get out of prison."
Hostin also mentioned Klobuchar's prosecution of 16-year-old Myon Burrell, a Black teen, now 33, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards despite there being little evidence to support his conviction, as Blavity previously reported.
A collective group of Black organizations based in Minneapolis, including the NAACP and Black Lives Matter Twin Cities, asked Klobuchar to suspend her campaign for president.
"It gives me no pleasure to say this because as you know, I was a prosecutor as well," Hostin said. "I have reviewed the facts of that case, and it is one of the most flawed investigations and prosecutions that I think I have ever seen."
"You're a U.S. senator now," Hostin said. "You're a powerful woman. What do you plan to do to right this wrong?"
Klobuchar's grilling was so bad that fellow host Joy Behar stepped in and comedically asked: "Are we prosecuting Amy Klobuchar today?"
