Sen. Amy Klobuchar just had a Jeb! moment.
CNN hosted a held a town hall on Monday evening with Klobuchar to discuss her 2020 presidential campaign and the policies he supports.
But one of the most intriguing moments of the night came when Klobuchar’s attempt to energize a crowd of students fell flat.
The Minnesota lawmaker was asked by a student in the audience about whether she could win over the Midwest voters that voted for President Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
“Look at what I’ve done, I’m someone who runs in a purple state. When I started running for office the other senator was Republican, the governor was Republican and three of our four constitutional officers were Republican,” Klobuchar began.
“And then I started running and every single time I’ve run I’ve won every single congressional district in my state, including [former Rep.] Michele Bachmann’s,” she added.
After she finished her long-winded response, the room was dead silent.
“That’s when you guys are supposed to cheer, OK?” Klobuchar instructed the audience, who then cheered following her request.
Amy Klobuchar to the CNN audience: Cheer for me. pic.twitter.com/9e9Q0WYEQ7
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) April 22, 2019
Ironically enough, Klobuchar is the second 2020 Democratic candidate who had a Jeb Bush moment.
During a CNN town hall earlier this month, host Don lemon was forced to tell the crowd to cheer after Rep. Julian Castro answered a question from an audience member.
Castro was asked if he supports legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults.
“I actually support the legalization of marijuana,” he said.
Castro went on to declare that if he becomes the next president, he would move to expunge criminal records for anyone imprisoned because of marijuana.
Don Lemon helpfully reminds crowd to applaud Julian Castro's answer at CNN town hall. pic.twitter.com/uf4Tbm7ZzM
— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) April 12, 2019
He went on to explain his position on giving a pass to those with marijuana convictions.
“On top of that we need to go back and expunge the records of people who were imprisoned because of using marijuana,” Castro said.
“And this is important. This part is important, in part, because there are a lot of people, and folks in this audience probably know some of them who have served jail time, right, and disproportionately it’s impacted communities of color and poor neighborhoods of people who have been imprisoned because of marijuana use,” he added.
Castro continued, “So it’s not enough just to say we want to legalize it. We actually want to go back and expunge these records. And we need to make sure that we take and we want to take the best practices of states like Colorado and other places that have legalized so that in the future states that do it afterward can get the best of that knowledge and not hit as many bumps in the road as some places have hit before.”
When Castro finished his long response, Lemon reminded the crowd to applaud for the Democratic lawmaker.
“Yeah, yeah, you can give him a round of applause if you want,” Lemon said before moving on to a question from another audience member.
Lemon encouraging the audience to applaud is eerily similar to Bush’s “please clap” moment.
While campaigning in New Hampshire during the 2016 presidential election, Bush pathetically asked the audience to clap for him after his applause line fell flat.
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