Sen. Tim Kaine was *really* on fire tonight, speaking to HUNDREDS of pumped-up people at the 2025 Women’s Summit opening night. See below for video and highlights…including Sen. Kaine telling a VERY revealing story about his interaction (or lack thereof) with Gov. Glenn Youngkin earlier today.
“Can I be like really candid with you guys? Everything about my day has been bad until right now. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. President Trump is stepping all over our higher education system…and his team is doing more damage today…My Republican colleagues in the Senate are moving forward on a reconciliation bill that’s going to slash Medicaid, slash food assistance, slash energy and manufacturing jobs all over Virginia. The Supreme Court just issued a whole bunch of rulings today that show that they are in Donald Trump’s pocket. I just asked my colleagues to vote for something that should have been a 100 to nothing vote, and that’s why I’m running late, that we shouldn’t be at war without a vote of Congress. I mean, it’s so simple – no war without a vote of Congress; the Constitution says it, and out of 53 Republicans in the Senate, asking them to just say that they should take responsibility for a power that is given to them, 52 of the 53 said no, we’d rather hand that power over to Donald Trump.
And on a real personal level, I’m supposed to start a 40th anniversary trip with my wife tomorrow that I’m now going to be late; she’s going to go without me because of the reconciliation bill, and I will hope to join at some point along the way. So when I say this is the only thing that I’ve done today that makes me happy, I’m telling you this is the only thing I’ve done today that makes me happy [Applause] – walking in and seeing this energy, but more than seeing it, feeling it, feeling the energy. It’s like you’ve administered a pep talk to me…without the talk, I just got a pep talk right by walking in. And I have the great great honor of being able to introduce our next governor, Abigail Spanberger [Applause]. And I’m going to do that, I’m going to do that justice.
But I guess what I really want to do before I do that is just tell you if you ever wondered how important Virginia is, a day like today tells you how important Virginia is [Applause]. Trump and his team wouldn’t be messing around with our university if they didn’t fear who Virginia is. Trump and his team wouldn’t be trying to cut people off Medicaid and cut people off assistance to give tax breaks to the wealthiest if they weren’t concerned about everyday Virginians – and they’re not, they’re not concerned about everyday Virginians.
And can I just say one other thing? What kind of self-respecting governor would let the Department of Justice midlevel functionaries kick out the president of the flagship university and not say a single word? Not say one word?[Applause] You will not have to worry…about a Governor Spanberger, if a president of either party decides to willy-nilly fire federal employees and uproot families’ lives, you don’t have to worry about will Abigail Spanberger stand up. She’ll stand up if a president decides to intrude on the Virginia higher education system, including the school where she graduated. You won’t have to wonder where’s Abigail Spanberger, where is the tall grass she’s hiding in. You won’t have to ask yourself that question, cuz she’ll be standing up; she’s going to stand up for Virginians in every city and county in every part of this state. You won’t have to wonder where she is. You won’t have to worry that she’s going to be trying to suck up to somebody in the White House rather than stand up for Virginia. I want somebody who stands up, not somebody who sucks up. I want somebody who stands up, not somebody who tears down [Applause]…”
“I’m going to say something I shouldn’t…Gov. Youngkin reached out to me in the last 36 hours about a matter of importance to a Virginia company connected to the appropriations bill, and I got right back to him, I said my staff’s going to work on it and we want to help. This morning I woke up and I sent a text to the governor, and I said, what the Trump administration is trying to do to UVA is really bad; Mark and I are going to stand up against it, we need you to stand up against it too…I sent that to him at 6:58 am and I have not gotten a response. Won’t stand up for your higher ed system? When I was born in 1958, Virginia was one of the least-educated states in the country. And now by all measures we’re in like the top 5 or top 10...Our higher ed system has been one of the crown jewels that have helped this state move forward. If you won’t stand up for that, will you stand up for ANYTHING?”
“And I’ve known Abigail since I was running for reelection in 2018…and she had a very small chance under Vegas odds of winning that [VA07] race. But I got see somebody who…[was the] best first-time candidate I’ve ever seen, and I’ve campaigned with *thousands*. And her service has been every bit the match of the candidate. Sometimes there are great candidates who aren’t so good at the service part; sometimes there’s fantastic public servants who aren’t great at the candidate part. With Abigail Spanberger, you’ve got both…[someone] who can break a glass ceiling…We haven’t had a woman governor, haven’t had a woman US Senator. We’ve got this fanastic ticket, and the eyes of this nation…of this world are going to be on Virginia in November, because we’re going to send the most clear, loud message – and it had better be a convincing one – about where this Commonwealth is…we’re also going to be sending a message about where this country is.”
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