Democrat senator says voters don't care about Russian bots - and warns Democrats

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) scolded her own party for focusing too much on bashing President Trump, and warned them that they would lose if they didn't provide an alternate vision for America.

Here's what she said

Klobuchar was speaking at a "Center for American Progress" Ideas Conference Tuesday when she made the comments.

"That's what people, is on their head," Klobuchar said, "is what's happening to them with their cost of college, or what's happening, how does that tax bill affect them. Those are things that are going to be on their minds."

"Healthcare premiums, those things," she continued. "I'm well aware of that. They're not asking me about Russian bots, OK? They're asking me about like soybean exports. This is a true story, I spent days in the rural part of our state."

"But that doesn't mean that we just ignore this assault on our democracy," she added.

"And I just believe we can do both," Klobuchar said, "and the way it feeds into elections in my state is people believe in some level of civility and norms. And they don't like this stuff that he's tweeting out, they don't like how he beats up innocent people, and they're gonna stand up against that."

"And I think that's what you've seen in the elections," she added, "and that's what you're gonna see in this election. But we're not gonna see if we spend our whole time bemoaning the fact that he's there. He's there. And we have to present an alternative."

Here's the video of her comments:

"They don't want to hear about Donald Trump every single minute," Klobuchar said later in the conference. "I'm telling you right now, that's not what they want to hear about."

A CNN panel discussing her comments said that she was trying to distinguish herself in order to probe a possible 2020 presidential run, while others said that Democrats are beginning to fear the midterms as poll numbers for the president continue improving.

Here's the CNN panel discussing Klobuchar's comments: