See below for video and transcribed comments by Sen. Mark Warner from his weekly press availability, held earlier today. Bolding added by me for emphasis of key points, as usual…
- “Here we are now over two weeks into the government shutdown and it appears our Republican friends are digging in even deeper. You know, this is a shutdown where President Trump controls the White House, Republicans control the House, controls the Senate. This can be solved virtually overnight if there was actual negotiation. And it’s been surprising to me that there’s been very little – lots of conversations, but unfortunately, I’ve come to the conclusion that in the Senate and I think even worse in the House, there will be no break on this issue until Donald Trump gets involved. The idea that there would be any kind of independent-acting Republicans – and I’ve been proud to work on all of those gangs in the past – at least at this moment in time is would be simply a fantasy. Donald Trump rules the Republican party with an iron fist, and he has to be in the negotiations to get this get this dispute resolved.”
- “Now, that doesn’t mean that we’re not seeing unprecedented pressure from the Trump administration. Frankly, they’re not even hiding their illegality. They are clearly trying to target um what are so-called Democratic priorities. I guess that means things like providing financial assistance to underserved communities with community development financial institutions. I guess that means providing disease warning from the CDC, although they fired a lot of people there and then had to hire them back up because it was, you know, stupidly thought through. A lot of folks at the mental health and substance abuse community are being fired. I guess that means concerns about drug overdoses is only a Democratic priority. And I’ve been with a lot of federal workers this week. I doubt if many of my Republican colleagues have been, and [the federal workers] are angry, they’re pissed off, they feel like Russ Vought, who is the as President Trump himself has declared, the grim reaper, has targeted the federal workforce in an unfair, biased, and just plain cruel way. And they want us to hold firm, to push back. I would point out as well that all of these firings during the shutdown I felt are illegal. The president has no additional powers. And in a good news note, a judge in California last night put all the firings on hold because the government couldn’t produce any reasonable reason why. They were pointing out that folks who were, you know, locked out of their government computers couldn’t even find if they were being fired. And then if they did find, they couldn’t turn to the HR department to get their paperwork because they’re shut down. So, and the remarkable thing about what I heard about the court case this morning was when the government was pressed on, you know, what are your underlying reasons, the government attorneys wouldn’t give any underlying reason. So what appears to be blatant illegality at least for the time being has been shut down by a court order and I think that’s good news.“
- “Why are we still in this battle in the first place? Quite clearly because we are also approaching a health care cliff. Virginians are receiving this month notices that their health insurance rates are going to more than double. Those who buy, the 24 million Americans who buy through the Obamacare marketplace, many of these are small businesses. Again, traditionally supporters of the Republican Party. The examples are numerous. There’s we cited a couple making 80 grand in Roanoke that were in their early 60s. They would have their rates go I think from like $847 a month to over $2,000 a month. Similar type doubling in every market in Richmond and Virginia Beach in Northern Virginia. I’ve not seen the numbers, but I know they’re pretty awful as well. And I think people are going to get these notices and say, ‘Oh my gosh, I understand what this is all about now.’ And the idea that you could punt this till the end of the year. Well, people have to choose their health care plan or drop out starting November 1st. And the point I make is that, you know, you take all the folks who are going to get disrupted from Medicaid coverage as that gets cut back over the next year plus. And we’ve already seen hospital systems cut back on rural health clinics because of those future cuts. And now you take millions more who buy their insurance through the marketplace, they’re going to be thrown off. What are they going to do? They’re still going to get sick. They’re just going to show up at the emergency room and come out as uncompensated care. What does that mean? That means in English that those costs at the emergency room, which are the highest costs in our whole health care system, are passed on to all the rest of us who have other kind of private health insurance. What does that mean? Well, that means all of our rates are going to go up. Our health care system is rickety enough. It’s got plenty of problems. What we don’t need to do is put it on a march to further destruction by pushing literally millions of Americans off healthcare coming the beginning end of November.”
- “So, this can be resolved. Donald Trump needs to sit down in a room. He could even pick the Democrats he wants in the room. That would be fine. Because there is a rational way to get it done, and it could be done in less than a day. But the current process, which is let’s try to simply harass federal workers and go after so-called Democratic priorities, I think it’s actually having the opposite effect at least from the federal workers that I hear from.”
- “Well, one of the things is I think [UVA President] Jim Ryan was pushed out for completely not valid reasons. My understanding was the university was more than prepared to turn over the documents the White House had wanted, and frankly that certain board members had urged them not to, which I think deserves a lot further investigation. The one thing I can tell you, these compacts, which I think are illegal and frankly would politicize our universities at an unprecedented level, would be a disaster for any university to sign. I know MIT they had a board meeting and I think the provost or the dean of dean of faculty had said MIT would lose 300 or 400 of its best faculty members if the university signed that political document. So MIT as a world class university would no longer exist. It said no. I think the other universities I know, particularly with the political pressure put on, it’s tough, but the idea that you’re going to limit your researchers’ ability to research, based upon the whims of this White House, would be a giant step backwards and a giant gift to China as we destroy our world’s best universities. It allows China then to further recruit our best professors. So this is not only stupid on the basis of education policy and against basic First Amendment rights and other rights we’ve held dear in this country. But it also would be a disastrous national security mistake if our top university signed and we were literally losing 20% or 30% of our best faculty. And frankly it would be a mistake whether that faculty goes to China or even ends up in the UK or Germany, which already have active recruitment programs going on to try to hire away top researchers, because they feel like the political pressure from this White House is so unbearable. So, I’ll be anxious to see what the university does. But I hope most would follow suit from the leadership that MIT has provided.”
- “…I’ve got legislation, and Tim Kaine and I are working on this together, to provide back pay for federal contractors as well, the way we already did in the law that Donald Trump signed in 2019 to provide back pay for federal employees. I think federal contractors ought to get that same protection…But the truth is yes, you know, contractors don’t get that back pay. And I am very concerned. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve got to get this shutdown done. Let’s get in a room, do a negotiation, you know, and reach agreement so we don’t hit the healthcare cliff and we get the government back opening. This is not a big ask. And particularly, you know, the President of the United States has shown his ability to kind of force deals – and I give him credit for what happened in terms of Gaza and Israel. He ought to bring that same attention and focus to this crisis here in America. Let’s get it done. I cannot believe that reasonable people in a room for a single day couldn’t get this resolved, because our contractors are hurting. I think they need back pay support that we need to put in legislation. I doubt with the mean-spiritedness of the Trump administration they’ll agree to that. But this is again one more reason why we’ve got get this resolved.”
- “Well, I see the judge in California as giving a a temporary win for the federal employees. You know, they’re already in a shutdown mode. They have been treated as political pawns by this administration. They are living in fear. At least having a judge say no, you can’t go out and I think the judge used the term arbitrary and capriccious, and fire people willy-nilly. That is relief. Now will that ruling stand, as I’m sure the administration will appeal it? I think the law is clear and it should stand. But it all begs the question of we got to get this resolved. And the unfortunate thing is I don’t think the ability to get this resolved lies with the Republican Senate or Republican House leadership. I think they have…had all their power taken away. I think they have to get all of their answers from Donald Trump and the White House. So, let’s get Donald Trump and the White House engaged. We can get this resolved.”
- “This is purely a fear tactic by a very mean-spirited Russ Vought. You know, if there was even some logic that said, ‘ok, we’re going to try to cut back in these areas and these departments, and this is part of a longer term plan.’ No. 10,000 is a number picked out of the sky to try to intimidate and frighten people. It is mean. It is wrong. It is, at least at this point, illegal. And whether the administration follows a court order or it chooses to ignore it. If they choose to ignore it, the number of my Republican friends who’ve said, ‘oh, Mark, you know, I know this guy’s going crazy, but at least he hasn’t ignored court orders.’ Well, if he starts ignoring court orders, the question is, do we have a constitutional democracy anymore? And people who’ve excused this behavior so far, they’re going to have a really tough question to answer. Because we are seeing on an almost daily basis this administration push push push against law, against norms, against its own federal workforce. And there’s public pushback. The Democrats push back. But unfortunately, there has been virtual complete silence from my Republican colleagues, and that’s a bitter pill for me to swallow as somebody who’s taken pride in trying to work on all these issues on a bipartisan basis.”
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