Home Mark Warner Video: Sen. Mark Warner Says “Israel clearly has the military ability to...

Video: Sen. Mark Warner Says “Israel clearly has the military ability to take out Hamas, but this is also a battle about hearts and minds”

Sen. Warner says he doesn't understand why GOP presidential candidates "want to be tough on Iran, but they want to walk away from Putin's aggression in Ukraine."

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See below for Sen. Mark Warner’s appearance this morning on Fox “News” Sunday, in which he said a few interesting things (also, as always – “broken record” alert – I don’t think that Democrats should go on right-wing-propaganda media like Fox “News”).

  • “Clearly, Israel has a right to defend itself, and Hamas has been using human shields. But the images don’t lie; we’ve seen for weeks, at some level, indiscriminate Israeli bombing…I think now that the troops have surrounded Gaza City, I think they are getting more targeted. I think it’s very important that these humanitarian pauses take place each time so that people can get to safety…”
  • “I think one of the things we have to realize is that Israel clearly has the military ability to take out Hamas, but this is also a battle about hearts and minds…in terms of maintaining support for Israel in this country, in the world and in the region…stop turning away from the settler violence in the West Bank…We are holding Israel, obviously, to a higher standard than Hamas, it is a civilized nation…”
  • Sen. Warner thinks it’s “terribly important” for Israel to release footage and intelligence about Hamas atrocities, tunnels underneath hospitals, etc., because “otherwise what America sees and the world sees…for the most part is some of the obviously…horrible images of now over 11,000 Palestinians killed.”
  • On Iran, Sen. Warner said, “by placing both a carrier group in the Red Sea/eastern Mediterranean…bombing some of the facilities outside of Iran, I think it’s terribly important…I think Iran is very aware of the military presence…I also think it’s kind of unusual, we saw the Republican debate earlier this week, where everybody was talking about let’s go after Iran directly, which could literally lead to a widespread regional war. And the thing that I don’t understand…they want to be tough on Iran, but they want to walk away from Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. Who is Iran’s biggest ally? It’s Russia…The idea that we’re going to allow a dictator to win, in terms of Putin and Ukraine, and then not recognize there’s a connection between Russia, Iran…China, is I think short sighted…It would be a historic mistake if America walked away from Ukraine at this point…No country would ever trust us again…The Ukrainians have literally destroyed over half of Russia’s military capabilities with not a single loss of an American soldier or NATO soldier.”
  • On TikTok: “I just don’t want it to be controlled by the Communist Party of China…We need to go after foreign technology from China, Russia, Iran in an organized, legal way.”

UPDATE – Sen. Warner was also on Face the Nation; see below for a clip

“…Virginia, a purple state, where not only abortion but gun rights, voting rights were all on the ballot in terms of Democrats’ positions vs. the Republicans, and I think it’s set the stage well for the president. And I think one of the things that has not gotten into the analysis – I mean, clearly abortion was a big issue – but I also think Virginia very reliant on the federal government, a lot of defense establishments…federal workers, I think the overall craziness that’s come out of the House of Representatives left the message that even when the Republicans in Virginia would try to appear moderate, I think Virginians were afraid if they got control of the state government it would be the extremists, the MAGA crowd, that would drive the bus the same way that’s happening unfortunately at the national level, and I think that played into the Democrats taking back the House, keeping the Senate, and stopping some of that agenda.”

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