Video: Sen. Tim Kaine Says “there’s no reason for [the shutdown] to drag on,” “we could solve it in a day,” but Trump “is going about it the wrong way; he’s stiffening our spine”

On MSNBC, Sen. Tim Kaine talks about the government shutdown, “why Republican leaders in the House of Representatives refuse to come to D.C. to pass a bill to ensure our military members are paid, and Trump’s illegal war in the Caribbean.” See below for video and some highlights.

• “The president is going about it the wrong way. He’s stiffening our spine. Here would be the way he should pressure us. When government reopens, there will be no more firing, there will be no more cancellation of economic development projects, there will be no more clawback of public monies to Virginia. He started punishing the federal workforce and punishing my Commonwealth and hurting economic development projects his first day in office. He said that there’s going to be more pain. It’s not an empty threat – we believe him. But he’s going to do it anyway. If he wanted to pressure folks to to find a path forward, he would say, all of that will stop and we will instead find a solution on this health care debacle that they created with the reconciliation bill. So he is applying pressure that is stiffening the spines of Democrats. And I live in the state with the second most federal workers next after California. Per capita, we have the most. I’ve been traveling around every weekend. The Senate is in session while the House has been home for four weeks now. But on weekends I travel around Virginia and my workers are telling me over and over again, the bullying has got to stop. And to stop it, you have to stand up to the bully. We have a president who won’t even engage. He hasn’t even been willing to engage with congressional leaderships other than the one meeting on September 29th, which, as you know, as soon as it was over, he started to tweet out doctored pictures of Democratic leaders in sombreros and speaking with artificial voices. He’s treating this like it’s a joke. He had a meeting in the Oval Office yesterday to give $20 billion to the Argentinian president, and promised more if the Argentine elections go the way he wants them to. He won’t even engage with Congressional leadership to open government and stop health care costs from spiking.”
• “Well, first, there’s no reason for [the shutdown] to drag on. If the president would engage with Congressional leaders, get them in the office, make the House guys come back, we can solve this in a day. We could solve it in a day. There are additional monies that were put to the Pentagon in the reconciliation bill that were not designated, that could be used for military pay. And yes, I do support the president doing this because Speaker Johnson said, I won’t bring the House back to pass a military pay bill. He refuses to bring him back to pass a military pay bill, probably because he’s afraid of the Epstein Files vote. That’s going to happen when they come back. So I’m glad the president found undesignated money within the defense budget that he could use for this purpose. I think there is more there in the reconciliation funds that were voted on in late June.”
• “Most of the federal credit unions actually have programs where they will advance federal employees, because knowing that I got the bill passed in 2019 that President Trump signed to guarantee everybody back pay before that shutdown, if there was a shutdown, you had to fight about back pay later and nobody was guaranteed back pay. Now that people are guaranteed back pay, the federal employee credit unions tend to offer to their members or those who do business with them. We will advance to you because we know you’re going to get paid when the government opens up again. We could open this government and get the funding done in 36 hours. If the president would just engage rather than spending time with the Argentine president and cutting a deal with the Qataris about an air force base in Montana. America first, folks; let’s get government open and bring people’s health care costs down.”
• “Here’s what we know that I can tell you, because I can’t tell you what I know from classified settings. It is public knowledge that when the Coast Guard interdicts ships suspected of drug running 1 in 4 times there aren’t drugs on the ships. So we have a a track record of we interdict, but we’re not always right – that is public record. We also had a hearing where I asked for facts to suggest that there were narcotics on all the boats that have been bombed thus far. I did not get answers that satisfied me on that question. And then the final thing that should trouble everyone, the president has said, and his team has said, that he has created a secret list of organizations and affiliates. We have no idea how many. And he can make the decision about whether, when and where to bomb them. He has not released that list to Congress, much less to the American public. We should not be allowing a president to create a secret enemies list and make the unilateral decision about whether to kill people without sharing that information, at least with the armed services and intel committees… And so this is very troubling…The administration won’t even give us answers to the question of why strike rather than interdict.”