See below for video and highlights from Sen. Mark Warner’s weekly “press availability.” Among other things, Sen. Warner said:
- On aid to Ukraine, Sen. Warner said “it is critically important that the United States continue to stand firm with our European allies to make sure that we fund the Ukrainians in both military…and economic assistance so they can maintain the progress they’ve made against the Russian aggressive actions. This $40 billion…is critical if the Ukrainians are going to be successful in both stopping Russian aggression and helping to push the Russians back from some of the territorial gains they’ve made in the first 10 weeks of this war…We are clearly giving the Ukrainians the tools they need to fight and defeat the Russians.”
- “This is so much bigger than a Ukraine-Russian battle. It is clearly a battle about an alliance of democracies standing together against an authoritarian regime. It’s one of the reasons I was so disappointed that we’ve seen now 11 Republican senators follow the kind of anti-democratic rhetoric that comes out of people like Tucker Carlson…walking spokespeople almost for Russian propaganda on a nightly basis in our news media. It’s pretty outrageous that there is this group that is fighting almost with the Russian approach.”
- On Sweden and Finland moving to join NATO, Sen. Warner said “it is one more example of Putin’s completely getting this wrong by launching this aggressive attack, he has further unified Europe...I welcome Sweden’s and Finland’s ascension to NATO.”
- On the shortage of baby formula, Sen. Warner said it was caused due to one of the largest manufacturers having unsafe conditions in its factor, combined with supply-chain issues happening worldwide. He said he’s “glad the White House is moving on this.” Also, “my friend Bobby Scott has got legislation in the House that would allow particularly those moms who are on any kind of public assistance to be able to buy any baby formula they want.” We also need more baby formula inspectors at the FDA. And we “are now looking at trying to import additional baby formula….This again drives home the point that I think we’ve all seen since COVID – we need a thorough examination of our supply chains.”
- On the shootings in Buffalo, Sen. Warner said he agrees with President Biden that “what motivated this heinous crime in Buffalo is racism.” Sen. Warner added: “The idea of white supremacy groups being promoted oftentimes on the internet has to come to an end.” He talked about his legislation to “put some guardrails on the internet, on the social media companies that bear no responsibility at all for no matter how hateful or atrocious some of the propaganda that comes over their sites…I think we need to put in place…Section 230 reform that would say if an activity is illegal in the real world, just because it’s on social media shouldn’t give the social media companies a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’…Some national media entities that frankly allow this kind of heinous appeals to be made, so-called white replacement theory and others, it has to come to an end…responsible people of both parties need to stand up and call out. White supremacy and this kind of bigotry should not take place in the United States of America.“
- On gun violence in America, Sen. Warner said “there are crazy people all over the world; they don’t take to the streets the way that we do in America with the level of gun violence.” Sen. Warner said “this has been exacerbated by members of Congress who flout these rules all the time. There was that young member of the House, Madison Cawthorn…thank goodness the Republican Party defeated him last night; this is a guy who has been arrested a number or times trying to go through airports with guns – that is against the law.” Sen. Warner said he’d love to see the Manchin-Toomey gun legislation be put on the floor of the Senate.
- Sen. Warner said Donald Trump talking about “very fine people on both sides” after the Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally was a kind of “moral equivalency argument that just has never happened in America.” “When you’ve got national leaders that say there are good people on both sides after modern-day Nazis, modern-day white supremacists protest in Charlottesville with racist dog-whistle terminology, I fear that you end up with these kind of tragedies [like took place in Buffalo]…Many of these groups want to create a race war…”
- On the primary results yesterday, including the defeat of several “centrist” Democrats like Connor Lamb, Sen. Mark Warner said “I don’t want to overread what happened yesterday…Lt. Gov. Fetterman he’s quite a life story…certain issues where’s he’s pretty liberal, certain issues where he’s pretty moderate…I’m not going to read too much into two elections…I think we need to hire and nominate – both parties – nominate people who are not at the farthest extremes, who are willing to work with people of goodwill in both parties to get to yes…you don’t get 100% of what you want...I do hope that both parties will get back to nominating mainstream candidates.”
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