See below for video and highlights from Sen. Mark Warner’s weekly press availability, held earlier today (bolding added by me for emphasis of things that I found particularly interesting):
- “Let me let me start with, today’s the 24th anniversary of the of the tragedy of 9/11. I can still remember that morning. I was a gubernatorial candidate. The big debate was about to come up. I rushed home and saw the second plane hit the tower and then went to my campaign headquarters which was right on the Arlington/Alexandria line and saw smoke billowing out of the Pentagon. Our nation came together after that tragic event and we need to try to reclaim that kind of spirit of unity.”
- “Obviously that’s not the case though. We saw with the horrific killing of Charlie Kirk yesterday. He was a young conservative activist, had a bright future in front of him. And all of us in public life, in the media, in any kind of community leadership has to speak out against political violence. There is no place for that in our system. And whether it was two failed attempts to to assassinate President Trump or the firebombing of the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania or the brutal shooting of Minnesota legislators, the stories go on and on. And all of us, no matter where we fall on the political spectrum, have to speak up and stand up against this kind of violence.”
- “In terms of the economy, we got some additional bad news today. The inflation numbers have ticked up higher than expected — 2.9%, highest rate of inflation in some time. Obviously not as bad as it was a few years back. But those numbers going up, combined with uh the revision around job losses to the point that it appears in the summer we even lost jobs in the economy, is a real challenge. I mean, President Trump promised this was going to be a new day for the American worker. Instead we see joblessness going up, young people coming out of college they’ve never had a tougher job market. And even in manufacturing, we’re literally 80,000 jobs down from where we started. This is not the kind of glorious economy for the American worker. And I think President Trump’s chaotic approach to tariffs, and zigging and zagging on the economy, while the stock market may be high, the real economy is hurting and Americans are hurting.”
- “Evidence of that as well comes from the awful bill that so dramatically cut back on on health care. I know that my Republican friends said, ‘oh, this bill is not going to hurt hurt health care.’ I think the projections are that 12 million Americans will lose their health care through Medicaid, another four or five million with the expiration of the Obamacare tax credits. If we need any further proof that those cuts and devastation is coming, look simply at what happened in Augusta County where not one but three rural health centers, one in Buena Vista, one in Weyer’s Cave, one in Churchville, all closed down. Why? Because of the cuts coming from this awful bill. We need to reverse those cuts. We need to make sure that the subsidies for Obamacare aren’t allowed to expire, because I can assure you if we allow this chaos to continue, and 500 to 600,000 between Medicaid and the Obamacare subsidies disappearing, 500 to 600,000 Virginians losing health care, they will overwhelm our emergency rooms and healthcare rates for everyone will go up. And again, don’t take my word for it. Starting the end of the month and into early October, people are going to see the rate increases coming forward that will range from 20% to 40%. An average 60-year-old couple in the Roanoke Valley making about 80 grand, they’ll see their prices go up about $800 or $900 a month. This is not necessary. We don’t need this attack on health care. Particularly since all of these cuts are due to provide a tax cut for the very wealthiest in America. It’s not fair. It’s not right. And we need to deal with the subsidies and also roll back some of the Medicaid cuts.”
- “On another matter that I wanted to raise, I got a lot of attention last week with my questioning of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy on health policy. It is abysmal that the Secretary of Health, eight months into his job, didn’t know how many Americans died from COVID. And the hypocrisy of him saying President Trump should receive a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, which produced the vaccine against Covid, but then him unwilling to acknowledge that that vaccine actually saved Americans’ lives. That got a lot of attention. What didn’t get attention in my questioning was I asked the Secretary whether he was aware of the crisis in rural America where so many OBGYN services, particularly at hospitals, have shut down almost all across Southside. These services have been cut back dramatically. You have to drive literally hours and hours if you are having a baby or trying to go to the hospital for OB/GYN services. The fact that he was he said he wasn’t aware of this crisis. How can you be Secretary of Health and Human Services if you don’t understand what’s going on? You know, getting red dye out of Skittles is important or dealing with seed oil. But boy oh boy, basic healthcare in America, this man is not qualified for the job. And again, I believe he should resign or President Trump should fire him.”
- “And then finally, back in my domain around national security, we saw this week Russia further push its pressure on NATO and its pressure on Ukraine. This effort of Russian drones violating Polish airspace clearly planned, clearly premeditated. This is what many of us, Democrats and Republicans alike said. Vladimir Putin will never be satisfied with just winning in Ukraine. He will push towards the Baltics or towards Poland. President Trump said he would end this war on day one. It’s not ended. If anything, we’re now closer to have Russia directly come in conflict with NATO, which would put American troops in harm’s way, or would require America to pull out of its solemn commitment to NATO, which has for the most part protected peace in Europe for the last 75 years.”
- “So, a dangerous and unsettled time, 24 years after the tragedy of 9/11. I only pray that some of that spirit we felt in the aftermath of 9/11, where we came together and rallied as a country, that we can recapture some of that.”
- [Question: “Do these kind of incidents [like with the attack on lawmakers in Minnesota, the Charlie Kirk murder, etc.] give political leaders, candidates, politicians cause for pause about being out in public among their constituents?”] “You know, it’s a fair question. I feel like part of my job is I’ve got to meet with my constituents. I work for the people of Virginia. And I can only do that if I have a chance to look them in the eye and hear from them. As you remember, that hearing I had or that town hall I had, a lot of folks upset with me on a variety of issues. My job is to listen. My job is to respond. If we disagree, disagree in a way that’s respectful. My fear is that we have, you know, particularly on the internet, forces that whip up hate, whip up anger. And we see that unfortunately play out with this level of political violence. And I think it is incumbent upon all of us, no matter where we fall on the political spectrum, to call out this violence, to condemn it, to reject it. And unfortunately, we often see if anything the opposite on the internet, where people with very little or no knowledge actually kind of whip up the anger, the hate and at least directly or indirectly the violence. “
- “I worry that some folks in elective office sometimes tend to fan the flames. I think if we are elected officials, no matter, again, where we are on the political spectrum, we have a responsibility to be calm, to be measured, to fight hard for what we believe in. Yes. But don’t go to the point of condemning those we disagree with and somehow questioning their patriotism, their faith. We’ve seen this…for years..And candidly, what I often have found is that sometimes it even some of the most vitriolic anger comes from folks that are supposedly politically aligned with you. So this is not simply cross party. It’s sometimes the most fervent activists within your own political movement are the ones who are the most critical. So I think we all need to take a deep breath at times and think a little bit before we speak. You know, I have a lot of differences with this president and this administration. But I think you can voice those differences without getting into the kind of hateful rhetoric that again we see too often.”
- “I remember when I was governor and I broke my hand on a bike…I went to the Augusta Hospital. I got great care there. But as you said, you know, on a relative basis, these are relatively not as poor communities as we have in some parts of Southside or Southwest. But this is a warning signal. Those who say the big awful bill is not going to cause any harm. Well these clinics are shutting down even before all the damage is fully done. I met with hospital leaders yesterday from a couple hospitals in Southwest that were part of a national based chain….They’re very concerned. I know my office met with some of the CFOs from I believe Carrillion and I think it was Ballad as well. But what the hospitals have to do, what I get frustrated with sometimes is the hospitals and others will come and say please Senator, help us fix these right away, you know these cuts are going to devastate us. But they have to be willing to say that publicly. I was frankly embarrassed by the Bon Secours health care system, who has got a hospital in Franklin, Virginia, in Southeast Virginia, and they wouldn’t even let me have a meeting on their their grounds because I don’t think they’re being transparent to the community there. That hospital’s probably going to close when these healthcare cuts come in. So I just hope the hospital systems who are complaining to me and trying to see if we can get these cuts reversed are also willing to be public about that and transparent with their patient base in their catchment area, that these cuts are coming and they’re going to hurt across the board, and they are going to be disproportionately hitting rural hospitals. And this will affect not only people on Medicaid, not only people who buy through the insurance marketplace, but it’ll hit all of us, because if we overwhelm the emergency rooms with folks who don’t have healthcare coverage, those costs have to be absorbed. And the only way they’re absorbed is if insurance rates for all of us go up.”
- “…I’ve talked with some of the fellow senators last night what we could do. You know, one of the things my whole career has been about trying to find common ground working across party lines. I mean, when I was governor, I had a 2:1 Republican legislature. We still got things done. And I sometimes joke I work in the only place in America being a gang member is a good thing. Every political group of senators are called the gang of this, gang of that. There’s not been a meaningful bipartisan piece of legislation that I have not been involved with this year. The only bipartisan bill literally that’s been passed was the stablecoin bill – and I was involved in that…part of this needs to be about just spending more time with each other, because when you get to know someone, it’s a lot harder when you know them and their family to get on the floor of the Senate and the floor of the House and vilify them as somehow evil or out of the mainstream. Too often the party’s leaderships try to keep us apart. I’ve been always about trying to bring folks together, oftentimes over a meal. But we have seen the ability of those of us who try to work in a bipartisan fashion, those members have been disproportionately leaving the Senate. I think about my friend Joe Manchin from West Virginia or Rob Portman or Mitt Romney or Roy Blunt, some of my Republican colleagues. You know, I think what we could do is all start with trying to reach out to somebody on the other side and and trying to understand their position on issues. And you know, I think that still happens to a larger extent in the Senate because we actually do know each other. It seems in the House there’s less of that. And I’m not sure I have a fulsome answer on that, because if it was obvious I’d try to be doing more of it. I think it though it does start with building personal friendships and personal relationships. End of the day, you know, and particularly a day like today after the tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s shooting and death yesterday, and today you know being the 24th anniversary of 9/11, our country did come together in the aftermath of that tragedy. We’ve got to see if we can rekindle that spirit.”
- “The two things I hear the most about on the road – affordable child care, affordable housing. And seeing it firsthand when I was in Henrico County earlier in the week, and you know, they’ve got a very creative ability where they’ve take tax revenue from data centers and put it into buying land and then waiving some of the permitting fees. If you build affordable housing, takes about 40 grand off the cost of an affordable housing unit and makes it more makes it frankly pencil out a lot better both for the builder and for the owner. In Danville, you know Danville’s the comeback city. There’s a lot going on across Danville in terms of rebuilding a number of the schools. This was an older school that has got both the official preschool program, but it’s also got a child care for-profit child care center co-located. And it’s a great center. It’s an extraordinary group where the city came and allowed a reduced rent in part of the the existing building. So, that made sense. I’ve got legislation that’s going forward that says, you know, we ought to be able to give a bit of a tax break if you increase the salary of a child care worker, it wouldn’t affect the base pay. But we lose about 50% of our child care workers each year because they just can’t make it on on on the wages. So, if we could give a little additional bump and have that be a shared cost between a tax credit and obviously the childare employer. You know, having affordable child care is really extraordinarily important, not just for the family, gets more people into the workforce. Part of the question as well, and I can go on too long on this, but it’s not just child care in terms of the physical location, it’s also making sure that it’s affordable. And one of the issues as well in Danville, but also I see it exponentially more even up in Northern Virginia, is the cost of transportation. How do you get your child to child care and how do you get them home? Particularly if the mom or dad at that point are working. So there’s some creative things going on in Danville as well. I’m looking on as well if there are other things we can do around transport costs for kids to get to the childcare center. But, you know, a lot of a lot of exciting things going on all across Southside, but I was very impressed with the the center I saw in Danville.”
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