Video: Regarding Debates, Sen. Mark Warner Says When the American People See Trump’s “rhetoric…anger…lack of any kind of plan,” “it won’t be good for…Trump”

See below for video and a few highlights from Sen. Mark Warner’s weekly press availability, held earlier this afternoon. Thanks as always to Sen. Warner for doing these – they’re very helpful!

• “The Senate intelligence committee had what will be the first in a series of open hearings on the potential for foreign interference in our national elections this year. As someone who, from the intelligence committee, led the bipartisan investigation for when Russia massively intervened in 2016, our committee has continued to monitor this. And I have to tell you that with less than six months before the election, I’m worried. I’m worried that other nation states – not just Russia, but…China, Iran and  potentially others know that it is relatively easy and relatively cheap to interfere in our elections…second is just the fact that Americans of all political stripes are much more willing to believe wild conspiracy theories, and unfortunately so many Americans don’t trust anything from the federal government, so that means that it is a target-rich environment to spread disinformation. Third is that we have seen many of the social media platform  companies frankly not do enough and in many ways retreat from even what they did in 2020…And four, we’ve got the challenge of Artificial Intelligence…deep fakes…”
• “I was one of the leaders to try to make sure that America met its commitment to Ukraine. I’m proud we are doing that, I’m proud those arms are flowing. But as chairman of the
  Intelligence Committee, we’ve got to speed those up because the Russians are pressing certain advantages they have around Ukraine’s second largest city Karkhiv…Ukraine is caught with not having enough arms; we need to continue to send those arms and frankly they’re going through a conscription process since Russia’s got so many larger population.”
• “Unfortunately we did not even get a vote on the addition of the five flights at National Airport in the Senate. I think the forces who wanted to frankly make it easier for themselves to go home knew that we would win that vote just as had  happened in the House when this was put to a vote, and the members said no…I was very disappointed with the process; they basically ran out the clock and no amendments at all were voted on. I hope and pray that we don’t have another safety incident at Reagan National… but I will say this as people’s delays at National, remember the long runway at National is the busiest single runway in America, and about 90% of all the traffic now uses that runway…22% of the flights at National are already delayed, about an average of 67 minutes; next time for the DMV traveling public you’re sitting at National and you’re an hour or two hours delayed, I hope you’ll remember which of those Senators ended up not giving our region even a chance to have a vote.”
• …”when I see some of the House Republican members attack the FBI with such bile; I would have never thought this would be coming out of the Republican Party that was traditionally supportive of law enforcement.”
• “I think like virtually everybody, I was totally
  surprised by what happened yesterday [with the debate announcement]…talking to my fellow senators in both parties, I think everybody was totally surprised. And I tell you, Tim Kaine and I both have already weighed in on this online, we’re both bitterly disappointed  – that would have been the first debate ever at an HBCU and I can’t think of a better one than Virginia State there in Petersburg…We haven’t given up on  trying to see if the second debate – they’ve obviously made the first decision to do it in a studio in Atlanta, but I still think the second debate, we’re going to still push for VSU. And if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I absolutely believe that it would be incumbent on President Biden to show up at VSU to make his case on why he wants to be reelected…during the next 170 days.”
• “I think, frankly,  campaigns are better served when they have a debate. I’ve debated my opponents in every campaign
  I’ve taken on. So I’m glad the American people are going to see the two candidates. I think one of the things that I believe will happen – because I don’t think most Americans at this point or most Virginians are fully tuned in  – and when they hear, unless there’s a dramatic change from former President Trump, when they hear the rhetoric, the anger, the lack of any kind of plan of what Donald Trump wants to do for America if
  he was elected again the president as opposed to what most all of his speeches are about, which is his personal grievances and who he’s angry at…encouraging division, particularly  against immigrants. I just don’t think that’s where the vast majority of Americans are at. So…I’ll let Nancy Pelosi and the Joe Biden campaign debate the debates, but I think at the end of the day, the American public will be well served. And I think as the American public focuses on literally the kind of rhetoric that’s coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth these days, that it won’t be good for Donald Trump.”