See below for video and a few highlights from Sen. Mark Warner’s press availability this week:
- “We are clearly starting with a rerun as we see the House Republican leadership once again go on what appears to be a potential kamakazi drive in terms of government funding and threatening once again a potential government shutdown, which would have – as I’ve said time and time again – a more draconian effect on Virginia and Virginians than any other state in the nation. It would be the height of irresponsibility. The approach that the Speaker put out at first of a so-called continuing resolution, CR, until March…Democrats, Republicans alike have said makes no sense, a CR that undermines the military, a continuing resolution that literally would have veterans across the country be hit disproportionately hard.”
- “And then if that wasn’t bad enough, they’ve saddled on again a right-wing extremist bill that would basically reiterate what is already law – that if you’re a foreign national, you don’t vote in elections in America. That is the law of the land. But the kind of crazy bill that was put up would have even said that to prove citizenship, if you happen to be a spouse that changed your name…with getting married, you’d have to go back and go through a whole process again. The good news I guess is that more reasonable heads on the Republican side said that was a crazy approach. But as we are now 19 days away from a government shutdown, we will go through the kabuki theater one more time of some other proposal maybe bubbling up next week, when at the end of the day what we ought to do is adhere to the agreed upon totals that the Speaker himself agreed upon…the notion of this crazy approach now coming with the end of the fiscal year, September 30th, is even the House Republicans have agreed that the Speaker’s plan was inadequate on a host of levels. So stay tuned, but if you feel like you’ve seen this show before and it’s a rerun, you’re right. End of the day on this issue, again, no state in the country is more disproportionately hit than Virginia with a government shutdown, with the number of our federal employees, with the number of our government contractors, with the number of our military installations, it would be a disaster for Virginia. And again I think we will avoid it, but it’s a little sad that we have to go through this whole process one more time.”
- “As we go to 2024…on the misinformation, disinformation… we’ve made progress, but there’s challenges. One, there’s the willingness of Americans to believe crazy theories just because they read it on the internet. We even see presidential candidates spouting off crazy theories that have no basis in fact. We’ve got artificial intelligence tools that can be used as deep fakes and manipulating images and voices – we’ve seen a little of, I’m actually surprised we’ve not seen more. We had a six-month period where there was no communication between social media companies and the government, that stopped because a case thank goodness the Supreme Court struck down about voluntary communication. And we’ve had these actions by the Russians, but we’ve seen other nation states – Iran, China, Russia and others – realize that it is cheap and easy to try to put out misinformation in an internet-connected world. It’s a lot cheaper to spread false stories than it is to buy a tank or a truck. So we’ve got to be on guard. I do worry that the closer we get to the election, the more possibility of Russia or Iran or other nation states trying to spread more false information, because we start voting in just a few weeks, and I am enormously concerned. And I feel like the level of public attention to this issue has dissipated a little bit; that’s one of the goals we have in our hearing next week to kind of again realert the public that don’t just believe everything because you read it on the internet, and to make sure if you see something or hear something particularly about voting itself that you contact your election officials…”
- “In terms of the disinformation sometimes coming from the Republican presidential candidate himself about the security of our elections or about the sanctity of mail-in ballots and absentee ballots, it is a real problem. And I think probably all of us have known an election worker at some point or another, usually folks who’ve been very active in the community, usually folks that are seniors that do it out of a commitment to community and country. The fact that they’re taking the level of abuse that they are is reprehensible. I think those who interfere in the process, those who abuse our election officials ought to be pursued to the full extent of the law. And I’m going to be following this very closely in Virginia and… try to make sure we get law enforcement involved. Because you’ve got a right to have your opinion, you’ve got a right to vote for whoever you want, you don’t have a right to threaten or intimidate people who provide what I think is…the…epitome of public service. These folks don’t do it for money, they do it because they believe in community they believe in our democracy. And when you undermine that trust and when that undermining goes to the level of threats, you’ve got to be held accountable.”
- “I think if you’re going to use mail-in – and I think it is safe and secure – do it early. What you can’t [do is] wait until that last three or four days before the election, or postmark it on the last day. You’ve got to be willing to go ahead and vote a little bit early…September 20 is when early voting starts in Virginia…we’ve made it easy to vote in Virginia, and I think that’s a good thing…I would not discourage people from voting by mail, I would simply say if you’re going to vote by mail, get it in early.”
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