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U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., takes part in a "Conversations About America's Future" program at ACL Live during the South by Southwest Interactive Festival on Saturday, March 9, 2019, in Austin, Texas
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar said her tough approach to treating her staff makes her qualified to negotiate with important world leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin in a recent CNN interview.
- Multiple recent
news stories have alleged that Klobuchar created a toxic office environment, regularly berating and even retaliating against her staff. - "When you're out there on the world stage and dealing with people like Vladimir Putin, yeah, you want someone who's tough," she said.
Presidential candidate and US Senator Amy Klobuchar said her tough approach to managing her staff made her qualified to negotiate with important world leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin in a recent CNN interview.
Shortly before launching her presidential campaign in February, news outlets had already started to publish stories alleging that Klobuchar created a toxic office environment, regularly berating and even retaliating against her staff.
Klobuchar and her representatives have declined to clearly deny or refute most of the allegations contained in five separate news reports from the Huffington Post, Yahoo News, BuzzFeed News, and The New York Times, often referring reporters to staffers who said positive things about Klobuchar as a boss.
"If you are a boss, you have to have high standards, and that is what I have always had. And that doesn't mean it's a popularity contest all the time," Klobuchar told CNN anchor Poppy Harlow. "And 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."
Read more: Here are all the allegations of staff mistreatment facing 2020 presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar
Klobuchar added that her toughness as a manager would help her negotiate with important world leaders and adversaries of America like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Donald Trump has been criticized throughout for his unusually close relationship with Putin, and taking positions favored by Russia at the expense of America's allies.
"When you're out there on the world stage and dealing with people like Vladimir Putin, yeah, you want someone who's tough," Klobuchar said. "You want someone that demands the answers and that's going to get things done, and that's what I've done my whole life."
Congressional data website LegiStorm shows Klobuchar's Senate office has the highest rate of staff turnover in the entire US Senate, with the Huffington Post reporting that at least three candidates turned down the job of managing her presidential campaign over her reported treatment of staff.
Klobuchar, a three-term US senator from Minnesota, is counting on her reputation as a measured, pragmatic moderate with a hard work ethic, a no-nonsense approach, and a "Minnesota nice" demeanor to dominate particularly among Midwestern voters - and pose a stark contrast to Trump.