Video: Sen. Mark Warner Rips Trump’s Big CRUEL Bill, Says It Must Be Stopped; Worries That Trump Could Get Us Into Another “never-ending war in the Middle East” Potentially with US Troops On the Ground in Iran

See below for video and a few highlights (after the video; bolding added by me for emphasis) from Sen. Mark Warner’s weekly press availability, held this morning. Lots going on, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, most of it is either bad or REALLY bad. Sigh…

• “I know like all of us, we are watching the evolving situation in the Middle East. And while it has been clearly American policy for decades now that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon and that Israel has the right to defend itself, we are unfortunately now entering into very uncharted territory. The one thing we know about the Middle East is it’s a lot easier to start a war there than it is to end one. My top concern is the safety and security of the nearly 40,000 Americans – military personnel, diplomatic personnel – that are in the region. We must keep them safe. And what so concerns me is that I have no idea what this administration’s policy is on this conflict. I’ve asked repeatedly, has the intelligence changed about whether Iran had actually decided to move towards a nuclear weapon? The director of national intelligence, Gabbard, had said they weren’t moving in that direction months ago. I got further confirmation on that this week. And yet we’ve got from the president a complete dismissal of of that intelligence. And matter of fact, if I as the vice chairman of the intelligence committee, a senior member of the United States Senate, has no idea what this president’s current policy on this conflict is, what does that signal does that send to our friends or foes around the world? I mean the president at the beginning of this conflict said ‘well, America will help Israel defend itself but is not going to get involved.’ That seems to have somewhat changed in the last 24 to 48 hours. Whereas it seems now that the president is actually trying to provoke additional action with at least some of these tweets. This is an extraordinarily dangerous situation here. And I am gravely concerned that this zigzag approach is undermining confidence from our allies, it’s undermining those nations in the Middle East in addition to Israel who are concerned about Iran in terms of the predictability of America’s actions. And as I’ve said, if I don’t know what’s going on, with all the access I have, what are the American people thinking? What are our our again friends and foes around the world thinking? I think it is incumbent upon the president or his foreign policy team to brief the Congress before they put American troops in harm’s way in this conflict. And I hope we’ll have more to hear, I know the secretary of defense is coming up to the Hill, I’m going to be meeting with the director of national intelligence later. But this is a a extraordinarily challenging time. And once again out of this administration we get chaos instead of any kind of plan.”
• “Another issue that that we are dealing with is this awful big bill. I think it is one of the most cruel bills I’ve ever seen in my time in politics as governor or senator. And increasingly, as Americans learn more about this, what Trump calls ‘big beautiful bill’, the more they dislike it. Let’s go through some of the high points. We now have a newer estimate from the referee, the CBO, that says this bill will add about over $3 trillion to the debt. We’ve already got an unsustainable debt; this does not cut the debt, it adds over three trillion, that’s by also factoring in the additional interest costs. It provides a massive tax break for the wealthiest Americans, while those Americans, those Virginians who are making roughly minimum wage will see their overall costs go up about 53%. That’s a reverse Robin Hood. In health care, this bill would basically take over 16 million Americans off of health insurance and it would take us back to where we were before Obamacare. And Obamacare had some good, had some bad, but it dramatically increased coverage; we’ve got the lowest percentage of Virginiaians without any health insurance ever at this moment in time. If this bill goes through, we will go back to where we were roughly in the mid 2000s, and emergency rooms will be overwhelmed, hundreds of thousands of Virginians will lose their health insurance from Medicaid, but hundreds of thousands of Virginians will also lose their health insurance because if they buy into what’s called the marketplace, they will see their costs go up $800 $900 a month and that will just be unsustainable. And if you’re saying well gosh, I don’t get my health insurance in those ways, so this shouldn’t really affect me. NO. Disrupting the marketplace of people purchasing subsidized insurance will end up driving up costs for everyone on health insurance. It will be a disaster. And the places that’ll get hardest hit will be rural communities – it will be cutting back on OBGYN services in hospitals and services across Virginia. It will dramatically cut back on mental health facilities. This is bad for the health care of Virginiaians. On top of that, this bill will also cut back on all of the clean energy credits, costing Virginia about 21,000 jobs, disproportionately cutting back on projects around wind and solar. It will also dramatically cut back on food assistance – roughly 200,000 Virginians will lose food assistance. Do we really want our kids going to school without a school breakfast or school lunch? Does it really make any sense to actually go back and literally cut food banks? It’s downright cruel. And one of the things I guess as a kind of a budget nerd that hasn’t gotten any attention, food assistance through the program called SNAP, is something that is generally done with federal and state partnership, one of the things that’s buried in this bill is it moves the administrative costs which are currently shared by the state and the feds almost entirely upon the state’s backs. So what does that mean? Well it means if this bill passes, before it even, we talk about the number of Virginians who are not going to get food assistance that have it now, it will add $300 million a year to the budget cost on an annual basis to Virginia. Do we really need to have that extra hidden cost? Is this basically a scam to transfer costs away from the feds to the states? I think any responsible state officials need to weigh in on this bill, because it will be devastating, not just in Virginia but across the country. And again this is a bill that needs more sunlight, because it stinks, and as Americans hear about how badly it stinks, they are coming out in overwhelming numbers. Last indication I saw said it’s 2 to 1 against and that’s still with about a third of Americans not really understanding its full ramifications. Why they’re trying to rush it through before July 4th, beyond meeting the ego needs of this president, is because this ugly cruel bill, the more Virginians and Americans hear about it, the more they’re going to hate it and dislike it and demand that we stop it.”
• “Fiinal item has been my increasing concern about both the politicization of our military and the politicization of our intelligence product. You know, one of the reasons why America has been so strong is not only because of the equipment that our military has, but the fact that allies around the world have known that the American military is non-political. Matter of fact, you take an oath to the Constitution, not to a president or a political party. And in the last two weeks, we’ve seen this president I believe dramatically politicize the military, sending Marines against the wishes of the governor into California when there’s been no indication that they would be needed. The president literally doing a political speech at Fort Bragg and trying to get military members to cheer him on. And then this past weekend, where in celebration of his birthday, we had a military parade. Thank god the army who ran the parade didn’t fully buy in to the Trump self obsession. But this is very dangerous. And again, to our allies around the world, if America’s military is suddenly politicized, that doesn’t make us safer.”
• “And then on the intelligence front, which I’m extraordinarily active in, we are seeing intelligence professionals fired if they don’t bend the knee and put out intelligence product that is what the administration wants. That has never been the case. The value of our intelligence community is to speak truth to power. Remember when intelligence got cooked in the past? That led us into the war in Iraq. And if we’ve got the cooking of intelligence right now going on without intelligence professionals being in charge and frankly political flunkies in many cases demanding obedience to this president, that’s the way you could lead and see this conflict between Iran and Israel blowing up and involving America in a not just potentially regional conflict but greater if intelligence professionals aren’t allowed to do their job, speak truth to power, tell the truth, don’t cook the books. And we’ve seen this administration, from mishandling of information around the Signalgate to firing of intelligence professionals, because people like Director Gabbard doesn’t like the results. And my concern now that intelligence could be being manipulated around this conflict in the Middle East. So far at least, the intelligence community has stood by its conclusion that Iran was not moving towards a nuclear weapon, they were enriching additional uranium but they were not weaponizing that yet, and that was left with the supreme leader. If there has been a change in that intelligence, I need to know. And I want to make sure that if it IS changed, it’s based upon fact and not political influence.”
• “So an extraordinarily challenging time both on the domestic front, on the international front. And it’s time when we need people of goodwill in both political parties to stand up. We are potentially dealing with some of the most dramatic cuts in health care and dislocation of food assistance and clean energy advances, at the same time that we have a chaotic foreign policy that could very well lead America into another endless war in the Middle East…”
• “If the president of the United States is going to totally disregard the objective conclusions of our intelligence community, he needs to explain to the American people why he is overriding the intelligence community’s assessment. He also has to explain why from last Thursday when he said Israel could attack but they’re on their own to what is happening today, what has changed. He needs to explain to Congress if he decides to put American aircraft bombing Iran, what is the reasoning behind that. And he also owes to our allies and adversaries around the world a clear foreign policy. I don’t have the foggiest idea what this president’s foreign policy is as regards to Iran and the Middle East at this point. I think that’s dangerous. I think it goes counter to the lessons we should have learned after Iraq and Afghanistan. I think it insults frankly the good work of our intelligence community that’s supposed to remain objective. And I fear that it will further isolate America from our partners around the world. We are in very dangerous territory. And if the president as the commander-in-chief wants to make these changes in policy, he owes all of us an explanation. We’ve gotten nothing but erratic tweets that seem to change by the hour. That is not the way to conduct American foreign policy during a regional and potentially global crisis.”
• “I think it’s appropriate that America deploys our naval resources into the region. That is important to make sure that if Iran does strike American bases or troops, we have ability to respond. I know those some of our naval vessels have already been engaged in actually helping Israel defend itself, shooting down some of the missiles. But I think those sailors and their friends and families in Hampton Roads are owed by this president a clear explanation of what American policy is on this conflict – not a tweet, not an erratic comment zigging and zagging. If we’re going to put American so sailors in harm’s way, those sailors and their family and friends are owed a rational explanation by the president addressing the American people, telling us in Congress what has changed in terms of the intelligence and giving assurance of as we’ve seen, Colin Powell said years and years ago, if you break it in the Middle East it’s hard to fix it after the fact. And we have seen endless foreign wars in that region. And I think Americans frankly thought Donald Trump was not going to put us in another one of those endless foreign wars. And if there’s intelligence or reasons that Americans don’t know or me as vice chairman of the intelligence committee doesn’t know that would make us change our policy, this president owes an explanation to those families, to the American people and to Congress before he just arbitrarily puts American forces in harm’s way.”
• “There’s nothing beautiful about this big bill. It’s ugly, it’s cruel and it’s destructive for the close to 40% of Virginia’s kids who rely on Medicaid, for their health care coverage. You’re going to see literally over 300,000 of those kids and their families lose any health insurance…It’s going to frankly disrupt particularly rural hospitals in a way that some will have to close down. I’ve had so many of the royal hospitals say ‘you get these cuts and we won’t be able to deliver children because we have to shut down our OBGYN services. Does it really make sense they’re going to have to drive four or five hours to be able to get the healthcare coverage to deliver a baby? Aren’t we more civilized in 2025? Shouldn’t we expect more as Virginians and Americans than that kind of cruelty? And again let me remind you on this, it is not just taking away those kids’ health care; for many of them it will take away their food assistance. What does it mean to take away and send a kid to school hungry because so many families are struggling? We’ve seen prices go up from a president who promised that prices were going to go down – prices have gone up and they’re going to go up even more as we see this wacky tariff policy really start to bite. And then one of the things that’s the most cruel with a bill that is going to add over three trillion to the debt, you’re really going to go out and cut food banks with all these other cuts in place…?…There is nothing beautiful about this bill, there is a hell of a lot that’s cruel in this bill and it’s got to be stopped.”
• “I’m spending a lot of time fully coming to understand what my great friend and colleague Tim Kaine’s doing. You know, that’s why we have a War Powers Act and I want to make sure that it’s Tim has drafted that appropriately. And I think it’ll be up next week. And I’m continuing to talk with him. You know, the reason there’s a War Powers Act is to make sure that presidents don’t go off arbitrarily, it’s why the constitution says if you’re going to go to war, you make a declaration of war and Congress has to approve. And the idea that this president…where his policy has been so chaotic and we’re not in one day, then we’re threatening and if not unconditional surrender we’re going to be in and if there’s been no change in the intelligence that Iran is not actually moving towards a nuclear weapon, he owes all of us not a tweet but to go before the American public and go before Congress and explain what our policy is…Kaine’s War Powers Act…will be up for a vote I believe next week. The challenge is though that the damage could be done any moment now and without an explanation. My fear is because we’re not even sure that using the bunker buster bombs that can only be delivered by American aircraft, whether even that alone could take out the nuclear facilities that Iran has been… in uranium enrichment has been trying to build, I’ve heard reports that what it’ll actually take troops on the ground. Do we really think troops on the ground, Israeli or otherwise, is going to not lead to another never-ending war in the Middle East? The president owes us an explanation if that’s the direction he’s headed.”
• “I congratulate my friend Jay Jones; I think he’s going to be a great attorney general. We need an attorney general in Virginia that actually works for the people of Virginia. And when you’ve got an administration as erratic as this administration, you’ve got an administration that constantly overrides as we saw in California the wishes of the state government and the government – I actually thought for a long time Republicans were supposed to be about states rights; we’re seeing the opposite in this case. I want an attorney general that’s going to protect environmental laws, protect consumer protection laws, that’s not going to just be a yes person for these Trump policies. And Jay Jones is somebody who’s been a legislator…a very successful lawyer, somebody I’ve known Jay and his family for years. I think he’s going to be a great attorney general that will actually stand up for the people of Virginia.”