Sen. Tim Kaine this morning on “Face the Nation” (h/t to the amazing Aaron Rupar for the video clip)…check out this fascinating exchange regarding Trump’s insane threats to Greenland, Denmark, NATO, etc.
- Margaret Brennan: “You brought up Greenland…the territory that Denmark has broad government over Denmark being a NATO ally. World leaders take President Trump’s remarks seriously. We take him seriously…”
- Sen. Tim Kaine: “And they should.”
- Margaret Brennan: “…seriously and literally. To that point, Denmark’s Prime Minister publicly warned that it would mean the end of the NATO alliance if he carries out what he said, which as recently as Friday, he said, ‘I want to make a deal for Greenland the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we are going to do it the hard way.’ Is there anything to stop the president from doing it, quote, unquote, the hard way, which sounds like military force?”
- Sen. Tim Kaine: “Margaret, I think Congress will stop him, both Democrats and Republicans. This would be disastrous. It wouldn’t just be America first, it wouldn’t just be the end of NATO, it would be America alone. If we take our best allies – and Denmark has been an ally for a very long time – and we decide that we have the military ability to seize territory from them, you will see the United States instead of being the world’s chief diplomat, and a leader in the world, you’ll see the United States isolated as a pariah. And I’ve talked to my Republican colleagues, they watch what the president has done in Venezuela, they hear the threats against other nations. I can tell you this, we will force a vote in the Senate about no U.S. military action in Greenland or Denmark. If we need to, we will get overwhelming bipartisan support that this president is foolish it even suggest this. We’re not going to do it the ‘hard way’ and we’re not going to do it the ‘easy way’ either. We’re going to continue to work with Denmark as a sovereign nation that we’re allied with, and we’re not going to treat them as an adversary or as an enemy.”
Sen. Tim Kaine says he believes the five Republican senators who voted to advance a war powers resolution to limit the Trump administration’s ability to further strike Venezuela without congressional approval will stay with Democrats even after President Trump publicly lashed out against them. “The fact that the president is going against them, just for wanting to have this debate before the public shows how nervous the president is about both his legal authority, but also the wisdom of what he’s doing,” Kaine (D-VA) says.
- “U.S. military action in Iran would be ‘a massive mistake’ and ‘would have the effect of giving the Iranian regime the ability to say it’s the U.S. that is screwing our country up,’ Sen. Tim Kaine tells @margbrennan. ‘U.S. military action would just bring back the painful history of the U.S. toppling the Iranian prime minister back in the 1950s, and would give the regime the ability to blame their own failures on the United States,’ Kaine (D-VA) adds.”
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