Video: Sen. Mark Warner Asks, “if you’ve got to pass the Laura Loomer litmus test to go visit a a federal facility that’s in your home state, what in hell have we come to?”

See below for video and highlights (bolding added by me for emphasis) from Sen. Mark Warner’s press availability earlier this afternoon.

• “…welcome back to the craziness. Let me start at the top on something that I didn’t expect to have to raise. Late last night, in an unprecedented move, the Secretary of Defense, I believe at the behest of the 9/11 right-wing blogger Laura Loomer, pulled my oversight meeting I was going to have with the National Geospatial Agency, which is located in Northern Virginia that had been long scheduled for this Friday. Last decade I’ve been either chair or vice chair of the intelligence committee. Part of my oversight is visiting the intelligence installations, many of them located in Virginia. It’s both my responsibility for oversight and it’s also my responsibility frankly as the vast majority of folks that work at these installations are Virginians. I’ve been to NGA, NRO, CIA, ODNI, a host of other classified sites. And this is just part of the job. I did it during the Trump administration, the first Trump administration. I did it during the Biden administration. So, I had had this on the books for weeks, had been in planning for months, normal course, even a classified meeting. Somehow the information got out to this right-wing blogger who nobody appointed anything but seems to have the ability to call the national security shots for our country. We’ve seen Laura Loomer earlier force the firing of the NSA director…We’ve seen her override or basically be more in charge than Tulsi Gabbard of national intelligence when she forced Gabbard to take away the security clearances of a number of our senior intelligence officials. Now we see her dictating to Pete Hegseth, I guess, because this long planned meeting has been taken away. I can’t do my job both as senior senator from Virginia with my constituents or more importantly in terms of oversight if I can’t visit these facilities. It is unbelievable. I’m going to be meeting with my Republican colleagues this afternoon. I mean if you’ve got to pass the Laura Loomer litmus test to go visit a a federal facility that’s in your home state, what in hell have we come to? But that seems to be the policy. And if Republicans are not willing to stand up and call this outrageous, where do we head? We’ve already seen Congress’s ability to do budgets overridden by the president’s power using the OMB as they rescind funding that Congress has approved. Are we going to give up as well all our oversight responsibilities to make sure these functions are reviewed and are acting appropriately? And what I fear is this sends another chilling message to the intelligence community workforce, again the majority of which live in Virginia, that if they don’t bend the knee their jobs are in jeopardy, their security clearances clearances are in jeopardy. And what is amazing here is I would have been angry if it had been coming from Pete Hegseth directly, but instead Laura Loomer on her right-wing blog was been blasting me all weekend. And now all of a sudden the meeting gets pulled. So is Laura Loomer now both director of national intelligence and secretary of defense? I think people deserve an answer. This is an unelected official who’s already wrought incredible damage to the intelligence community and now to our defense establishment. And again, I think Virginians and Americans deserve better.”
• “…quick report though on what I was thought I was going to talk about today. First of all, I got a chance to in the last week or so before August, before Labor Day and in the immediate aftermath of Labor Day, to travel around Southwest, Southside, Hampton Roads, and even a visit around a couple visits around Fredericksburg. And what I heard at virtually every stop was huge concerns about this big ugly bill that is now the law of the land. Concerns in the city of Franklin down in in Hampton Roads where huge concerns about their hospital closing. And I’m extraordinarily disappointed with Bon Secours who runs that hospital, who wouldn’t even allow us to have the meeting on hospital grounds, even though they come up and lobby me all the time, about you know, god this bill is going to cut so deeply into our ability to provide coverage for underserved communities. If these hospital chains are not going to be transparent with their customer base and patients, then we’ve got a even bigger problem…I heard it in…Franklin. I heard it in Martinsville at a senior center. I heard it particularly in in Roanoke where a group of nonprofits that don’t know whether any of their funding is going to continue. They do know that when we throw 300,000 Virginians off of health care from Medicaid cuts, when we potentially will throw another couple hundred thousand Virginians out of food assistance from SNAP cuts, when we see dramatic rises in health insurance premiums that Virginians are already getting notices and…these premiums will click in at the beginning of October because the health care credits expire at the end of the year and there’s no indication that the Republicans will extend those. You know, we’re going to overwhelm our health care system. You put 500,000, 600,000 more people into the uninsured bucket, they will overwhelm our emergency rooms. Franklin is one of the hospitals, the six hospitals in Virginia that it appears will probably close. 36, 37 nursing homes are scheduled to close as well. It will break our health care system and people are worried…I’ll come to the government funding in a moment, but I think it is critical that we push back. On top of that, I heard from farmers in both Franklin and in Orange County that were really concerned about you some of the ag cuts…They’re also extraordinarily concerned about this wacky tariff policy, up and down, and it completely robs the ability for Virginia farmers to sell abroad. At the same time, the tariffs are cutting into the cost of their equipment, the cost of of fertilizer. And remember, most Virginians don’t realize, agriculture is still the number one industry in Virginia in terms of total market. So when you cut this many farmers and put this much uncertainty in place…they have no idea what’s going to happen. And what’s going to particularly crush will be small farmers who are either just starting out or who don’t have this need these farm assistance programs that you know that the large corporate farms frankly can get by without. So huge concern from farmers, huge concerns from seniors…People are worried, what’s going to happen if Medicaid goes away or gets dramatically cut that affects Medicare. Where do our seniors turn? I think we owe an obligation to those seniors. And then um one of the last visits I had was just yesterday afternoon in Fredericksburg with veterans. I can’t think of an administration that has been unfortunately more veteran unfriendly…about a third of our federal workforce are veterans. And when you’ve had this DOGE and other efforts just willy-nilly cutting federal workforce, 300,000 is what the administration themselves say they think they will have fired or cut loose before the end of the calendar year, you know, a third of those are going to be veterans. So for all the rhetoric coming out of the White House, in terms of actual benefits, health care and support, you know veterans I think are furious and rightfully so.”
• “Which brings us back finally to we’re back in session now. We’re moving on the defense bill, but we’ve got a big date coming up September 30th – government funding runs out. We have to have a bipartisan budget. If the Republicans try to jam a one-party-only solution,  then I think we’re probably headed to a shutdown. I hope that’s not the case. I desperately want a bipartisan extension and moving into next year’s  budget…Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House. The only place where they actually need our votes is in the Senate. If they want to work with us, I’ve always been part of every bipartisan effort going forward. But I am hugely concerned both on their so far unwillingness to even negotiate in a meaningful way and on top of that, as we’ve seen and I mentioned earlier, if Congress is giving up its power of the purse and you sign a budget deal and then the director of OMB – who remember, Russ Vought, this was the guy that wanted to traumatize the federal workforce. He has done a good job there, but can arbitrarily pick and choose which programs to fund? He just cut another $5 billion approximately of foreign aid out last week with no congressional approval. How do you make sure any deal is going to get honored? I say I’m going to work as hard as I can to make sure we get that bipartisan agreement and we don’t have to put our country in the federal workforce through another period of trauma. But it takes two to get at least in the Senate, it’s going to take both sides coming together. And you know we need to have that bipartisan approach. And time will see. Matter of fact, there’s not even been a meeting yet between President Trump and the congressional leadership, Democrats and Republicans alike. Again, we’re in uncharted territory and it’s going to be a bumpy September.”
• “I intend to visit hopefully with Senator Kaine the Chantilly facility. I did talk to the ICE officials and they have indicated that folks are there only 24-48 hours. I want to hear that directly from the people in Chantilly and frankly from some of the folks that have been detained. I remind folks now that ICE has a bigger budget than the FBI, and frankly we are having all kinds of other law enforcement taken away from fighting crime to also picking up folks. Listen, I think the Democrats messed up on the border. But you can have a secure border and not have ICE officials, too often masked, picking up, you know, moms dropping off kids at daycare or folks going to work. I did visit the facility in Farmville and got a commitment from the private company, that shouldn’t have any concerns about finances with as large as ICE’s budget is right now, to work on improving both health and food. And there were some simple things, things like hand sanitizer, things like, you know, milk quality, that we’re going to stay on top of them to get answers on. But clearly Chantilly, I’ve got an oversight responsibility there. But what I worry about in light of what’s happened with the normal course of my job of going out and visiting intelligence locations in Virginia as vice chair of the intelligence committee, former chair, where the overwhelming majority are Virginia constituents. if they’re trying to preclude me from visiting those facilities, which I’ve done dozens of times over the last 10 years. I am hopeful that they will not try to restrict Senator Kaine and I’s ability to visit this facility in Chantilly. We’re trying to get that on the books right now.”
• “I think…I’m not saying the president, but I think the OMB director who’s made clear he doesn’t want to have bipartisan negotiations are hoping for a shutdown. And you know, this… was a definitive poke in the eye to Congress, not just Democrats, but Republicans as well. I think it’s, as the chair of the appropriations committee, the Republican senator from Maine, Susan Collins, said, I think it’s illegal. But the challenge is these actions take place and if they have to be litigated for months in the courts, these funds are not released…So I think this is provocative. I think it reflects at least some in the White House who want to shut down, so they can frankly even further ignore Congress. And if my Republican friends don’t have, and I’ve worked bipartisan, as you know, if my Republican friends don’t have the courage to stand up, if they are going to simply roll over, then this completely undermines the Article One powers of Congress. And, you know, this isn’t about partisanship. This isn’t about Democrats, Republicans. This is about whether we’re still going to be a representative democracy where Congress has a voice.”
• “I think they’re trying to rebrand the the Big Ugly Bill because the American people realize this bill takes away millions of Americans healthcare. It cuts out food assistance in terms of school lunches, school breakfasts to pay for a tax cut for the wealthiest. And on top of that, it has a host of other little surprises in there. It limits people’s ability to go to college. We, you know, healthcare, we need more doctors. You can’t with the restrictions put on student debt in this bill. You can’t afford to go to medical school if you’re not rich based upon this bill. It even cuts back on the ability of of people, not billionaires, to give money, but somebody gives $5,000 to a local nonprofit, it cuts back the ability for folks to deduct those donations. I’ve seen a lot of bad legislation in my time here, as both governor and senator. This is the worst bill I’ve ever seen. And I don’t think trying to put a new name on this bill is going to change people’s opinion. It stinks. It is detrimental. It will hurt Virginians. It will hurt Americans. And I think it’s got to be changed. And that’ll be part of our negotiation about the possibility of a government shutdown…I want to avoid a government shutdown. But you’re already seeing this administration arbitrarily shut down parts of the government it doesn’t like without congressional approval. There’s got to be a bipartisan deal here and it’s got to be guaranteed that…once you sign your name and vote for something that the OMB director doesn’t just on his own whim cut programs. So, it’s going to be a tense time, but if we don’t stand up now, if we don’t push back now, you know, when will you ever count on the federal government for anything going forward? And that undermines trust in our authority. And again, it undermines trust in frankly…I would argue even the the presence of if we if we’re going to turn Donald Trump into an arbitrary individual that can decide all issues. I don’t think even the folks the majority of folks who voted for Donald Trump for president thought they were buying that. And I think we’re going to have a spirited debate, but there’s not going to be a rollover here with simply putting a rubber stamp on these policies.”
• “…Mr. [Abrego] Garcia, I gave him letters from his family, he was obviously very emotional about that. I think he felt secure in the facility. That was good news. I think he is very concerned that since DHS had already made one mistake and sent him to El Salvador illegally, he feels very much that they are trying to pressure him to pleading guilty on some of the charges against…And I have no idea about the validity of those charges, that is a separate matter. But there is a due process here. And what they’ve threatened, what he relates is if he pleads guilty, they’ll deport him to some place like Costa Rica. If he doesn’t plead guilty, they’re going to try to deport him to Uganda, where he has no ties, no knowledge. He’s never been to Africa. So he ought to go through the criminal proceedings at the appropriate time. But the first thing here is, does anybody in America have due process? And there’s hearings scheduled in I think early October and we ought to have that proceeding play out and and then move forward on the criminal proceeding. But I’d say on the greater issue of detainees, there were a number of these individuals, some probably belong there. But there were a number that had no prior criminal record, they were picked off the street, they had barely any chance to communicate back with their family. And while the conditions, you know, I think there were conditions I’ve been in a lot of jails and prisons. It wasn’t by any means the worst. It wasn’t the best. But I do think there are some basic things like not having curdled milk or making sure that you’ve got hand sanitizer and some of these things are not going to break the bank, but at least allow some level of humane treatment for these detainees.”
• “…it’s outrageous, who appointed Laura Loomer the guardian of our defense and intelligence community? And it seems like she has more power than Tulsi Gabbard or Pete Hegseth. I’ve been doing these meetings at our intelligence agencies for more than a decade; I have been part of the leadership chair or vice chair of the intelligence committee that whole time. The vast majority of these individuals are Virginians. And if you have to pass the Laura Loomer litmus test to be able to go visit a federal facility in your state, which you have direct responsibility over from Oversight, then we have destroyed the role of Congressional oversight, because I’m not sure anyone will meet the muster. And if my Republican colleagues don’t join me in pushing back, then I think the whole concept of Congressional oversight could go away. And remember, when you cook the books in the intelligence world, people die. That’s what happened with the Iraq war. We’ve made dramatic reforms. But if you move the intelligence community back to where its goal is to simply support Donald Trump’s agenda, no matter how out there, no matter how much it refutes factual basis, then our country is not only less safe, but we are in uncharted territory…If you look at the number of intelligence professionals, this wasn’t Laura Loomer’s first crazy rant….the NSA director got fired, 37 individuals lost their security clearance. I would imagine when the DIA general got fired, it probably was because of Loomer as well. This right-wing fraud, again, remember 9/11 denier; she seems to have great admiration for white nationalists – if she is calling the shots in our defense and and intelligence community right now, as it appears she has, and nobody appointed her, elected her to anything, I think she’s probably so out there, they won’t give her a job. But she’s calling the shots. And if that’s where this policy is headed, again, this is a brave new world and it’s not a good new world.”

UPDATE 7:15 pm: See below for Sen. Warner’s video about Laura Loomer, in which Sen. Warner argues, “Laura Loomer is basically a Cabinet member at this point. Trump and his entire administration are caving to whatever she wants.”