Video: Sen. Mark Warner Says Republicans Being Extremely Irresponsible on Debt Ceiling; Says This “Rubik’s cube on steroids” Has To Be Resolved “literally in the coming days”

This morning, Sen. Mark Warner held a “media availability” to – as his office put it in a press release – “discuss the urgent list of priorities that the Senate will be juggling in the coming days and weeks,” including “the need to keep the government open and protect federal workers,” as well as “the importance of raising the debt limit to ensure that the federal government is able to pay the tab racked up under the Trump administration. ” As the press release put it, “Failure to do so would force the nation to default on its debt, wreaking economic catastrophe for American families and communities.” Also, Sen. Warner discussed new legislation he introduced yesterday “to make it easier for Virginia’s first-time, first-generation homebuyers to own their home and build wealth more rapidly. The Low-Income First Time Homebuyers (LIFT) Act comes as America’s Black families face an average net worth just one-tenth the size of their white counterparts.” See below for video and highlights.

According to Sen. Warner:

• The situation facing Democrats “over the next 10 days or so” regarding the budget and debt ceiling is like a “Rubik’s Cube on steroids.”
• “We’ve got to make sure that we don’t shut down the government…don’t mess with the full faith and credit of the United States of America, which is the debt ceiling. And let me be clear what an absolute disaster this would be if our Republican partners don’t step up and continue the raising of the debt ceiling…all about paying for bills we’ve already incurred…that all of my Republican colleagues voted for.”
• If Congress doesn’t manage to raise the debt ceiling, Sen. Warner said this would “shock the markets…potentially see interest rates go up…adds to the debt payments we make…could end up having Social Security checks not go out, Medicare checks not go out, our men and women in the military not getting paid…your credit card bills would go up, your mortgage payments would go up…so we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
• Sen. Warner also pointed to the necessity of passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill and “grapple with how we make our tax code fairer and make the kind of long-awaited investments in child care…in bringing down the price of prescription drugs…universal pre-kindergarten…All of these are wrapped together and we have to get them resolved literally in the coming days.”
• Sen. Warner said we can get COVID-19 behind us but “only if we get vaccinated,” adding that he strongly supports President Biden’s mandate, as do many businesses who know they need their workforce not to be getting sick with COVID-19. According to Sen. Warner, people’s “personal right” not to get vaccinated should NOT “extend to harming others in the community – and their failure to get vaccinated, I think there needs to be consequences and I support the President’s approach.”
• Sen. Warner said it would be “news to me” if the Speaker and Majority Leader have come up with a revenue number for the infrastructure bill, that we need to get to one, that they’re still trying to work through the “top-line number.”
• On the issue of national politics impacting Virginia’s elections, Sen. Warner said Congress needs to make sure it doesn’t shut down the government or “blow through the debt ceiling.” Sen. Warner said if Republicans vote against this, it would “be a disaster,” but that this is the kind of “Russian Roulette politics they’re willing to play.” Sen. Warner talked about the “nationalization of…our politics,” including the majority of Republicans in the US House who “buy into Donald Trump’s ‘Big Lie’…that scares the heck out of reasonable Americans of all political stripes.” Sen. Warner added that when Trump Republicans argue against vaccine mandates, “that is against what the majority of Americans…and Virginians believe is right policy.” Sen. Warner thinks that what we saw in California is that “when you put that in those kind of stark terms, Americans respond.” Sen. Warner said he wishes the Republican Party “would get back to being a traditional, conservative, center-right party that didn’t follow the wackiness of Donald Trump, but at this moment in time, that’s not the case.” According to Sen. Warner, he thinks the President’s popularity will “rebound quickly” if Congress gets the infrastructure bill done – “I think the president’s numbers will come ROARING back.” Also, “when voters are reminded of the choice…where one candidate wants to keep Virginia moving forward, and the other candidate is kind of mimicking a lot of the Trumpisms about vaccinations, about the ‘Big Lie’ about election integrity…that’s not a place where the vast majority Virginians, regardless of your political party, want to end up.”