See below for video from Sen. Tim Kaine’s appearance on Face the Nation this morning (h/t to the amazing Aaron Rupar for these video excerpts!), as well as some highlights.
- “And the second thing we need which is so reasonable, we’re just asking if we do a deal, please don’t Mr. President sign the deal and then immediately the next day starting to take away funds, rescinding agreements that you just made yesterday. A deal should be a deal, and we should all agree that Americans should not see their health care suffer, their premiums spike and people lose insurance and providers close. We’ve already had providers in Virginia announce that they are closing their doors because of the bill that the Republicans passed in July. And this is happening all over the country. Let’s just do what’s right by our constituents and fix it.”
- “A bare majority [of the grand jury] – as you know, Margaret, there’s 23 people on a grand jury, they need at least 12 votes to get an indictment. And yes, they got their finger over the bar with 14. Although the 23 wouldn’t agree on one of the charges that the U.S. attorney was pushing. So we will see what this case is about. It is odd that the indictment has so few facts. And I found it very odd. I used to practice in this court. And when the Attorney General put out a press statement after the indictment and said we will follow the facts in this case. What? Prosecutors follow the facts *before* they indict. They don’t indict and then say, well let’s see what the facts are. I think she even revealed that this is a weak case, which everyone in her office was telling her, it was a weak case.”
- “Margaret, it’s pretty darn plain [what’s going on in Virginia with the U.S. attorneys being forced out]. The president nominated two U.S. attorneys in Virginia. Both with Republican bona fides. Todd Gilbert in the western district had been the Republican Speaker of our House of Delegates and he resigned as a legislator to take the Trump appointment. President trump’s team interviewed these candidates and approved the candidates and nominated the candidates and then even appointed them into the interim position. But both were forced out because they said their integrity as prosecutors wouldn’t allow them to genuflect to Donald Trump. In Todd’s case, they wanted to force him to demote a long-time career member of the western district of Virginia who had served under multiple administrations and presidents. He refused to do so. In Erik [Siebert]’s case, he refused to bring a criminal charge against a perceived Trump political opponent when there was no evidence to support the charge. President Trump spending time going after enemies and trying to figure out a way to give $20 billion to a friend, the Argentine government, instead of dealing with the challenges we elected him to confront. Food prices are going up. Building supplies [prices] are going up and school supplies [prices] are going up. Energy costs are going up. Health care costs are going up. And Donald Trump seems to be focused on a retribution campaign. You gotta focus, man; this is an important job, it’s time to focus.”
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