Earlier today, Sen. Tim Kaine held a media availability, during which he talked about his War Powers resolution among other topics. See below for video and a transcript/highlights:
- “The Senate will be voting on my War Powers Resolution, which is bipartisan…Basically says no war against Iran without a vote of Congress. It does an explicit exception for actions taken by the United States to defend itself or to defend allies, including Israel, from attacks on those nations within their territories. But it would order the president to remove U.S. troops from offensive hostilities against Iran.”
- “President Trump launched a war against Iran. He’s called it a war. The head of the Joint Chiefs has called it a war. And Secretary Rubio has called it a war. Over the past year, we’ve seen an escalating set of military, U.S. military aggression against international boats in international waters, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran last summer, and now this more major action. Each time the administration has sort of proffered, oh, the strikes in international waters, those aren’t sufficient to constitute war. So we don’t need Congress. The Venezuela operation, it was a law enforcement operation, so we don’t need Congress. The Nigeria operation, it was against terrorists, subject to the 9-11 authorization. Congress already passed. We don’t need Congress. The attack in Iran over the summer, it was one and done. We’re out. The War Powers Resolution says remove troops from hostilities. We’re already gone, so we don’t need Congress. This is much more serious. The President and everybody’s calling it a war. They’re not pretending this is too minor to be a war. They don’t know how long it will last. We’ve already lost, tragically lost, U.S. service members in this war. Others have been injured, and the President and the head of the Joint Chiefs of General Staff, General Dan Caine, have suggested we may lose more. Many, many countries are being drawn into this war. Americans all over the region were told by the State Department it would be wise to leave, but they were only told that after most commercial air flights had been canceled. My office is dealing with Virginians who are stranded overseas and trying to find a way to get back home. Virginians are deployed significantly in this war. The Ford Carrier Strike Group, as an example, which was deployed in the Middle East, normally a deployment would last seven months, was ordered to the Caribbean and went there. Now they’re ordered back to the Middle East, and they’re back there. It’s looking like this deployment might last as long as 11 months, which would make it nearly a record in terms of the length of an aircraft carrier group deployment. That means 11 months where these sailors haven’t seen their families, and there are major maintenance issues on the carrier that are the kind of things that happen when you run it at a pace that was not the design. You know, basic quality of life issues on this carrier make it very, very tough. My reports are that morale is pretty low as folks struggle to deal with those issues. This war has real-life consequences, real-life consequences for the families who are learning that their loved ones won’t be coming home and for others who are deployed, and for families all over Virginia who wonder, is my son and daughter going to be sent into war? Is my husband and wife going to be sent into war? This is really important stuff. And so I have held President Trump to the same standard that I held President Obama and President Biden to, which is we shouldn’t go into war without an affirmative vote of Congress. And we especially shouldn’t go into a dumb war. In my view, this is a dumb war.”
- “Have we not learned anything from 25 years of war in the Middle East? I mean, have we really learned nothing? More than 14,000 troops and contractors killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, many Virginians. More than 65,000 U.S. troops and contractors injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, many Virginians. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan killed. The total cost to American taxpayers of war, plus the VA funding necessary to honor our commitment to those wounded by war, plus the debt we took on to fund the war, the total cost has been estimated to be over $8 trillion. We could have provided health care. We could have provided housing. We could have provided education or pre-K. But we spent $8 trillion on 25 years of war in the Middle East. And I ask my colleagues, what did we get out of it? I mean, what did we get out of all this sacrifice of U.S. lives, innocent civilian lives, all this money? It was necessary that we find and eliminate Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9-11 attack. Other than that, what good came out of it? I challenge any colleague who thinks war in the Middle East is a good idea, go to the Senate floor and tell the American public what good to the U.S. was achieved by 25 years of war in the Middle East. And so I’m standing with a stop sign doing everything I can to stop my colleagues from embarking on yet another war in the Middle East that will hurt our troops, hurt our families, and likely not achieve much of consequence for the U.S. that couldn’t be achieved via other means, diplomacy, sanctions, rallying international coalitions to put pressure on Iran.”
- “Iran is a bad actor. They’re a bad actor to their own people, and they’ve been a bad actor throughout the region. But the history of back and forth between U.S. and Iran that goes back to at least 1953, when the U.S. led a coup that toppled an Iranian government and thus created hatred in what had been an ally of the United States, our effort to topple their democratic (6:42) government created a hatred in Iran that has manifested in Iran taking our embassy, Iran attacking our troops, Iranian militias bombing the USS Marine barracks. And every time that happens, then we give weapons to Iraq to bomb Iran during the eight-year Iraq-Iran war. We shoot down an Iranian commercial airliner in 1988, killing civilians. We invade Iran’s eastern next-door neighbor and their western next-door neighbor in the early 2000s. If war between the U.S. and Iran were the answer, then we would have found the answer a lot longer ago because it’s basically been a state of significant divide between the U.S. and Iran, or elements within Iran, for 70 years. War isn’t the answer here. “
- “I’m very disappointed in Congress, and this goes back a ways. It’s Congresses of both parties that recognize war as a hard vote. After the votes for the Afghan war in 2001 and the Iraqi war in 2002, Congress seems to have learned a lesson, like maybe we can just hide and not vote. Just let a president do it without us. Even though the Constitution says we shouldn’t send our sons and daughters into war to risk their lives, if Congress hadn’t debated and voted on it, and thereby signed it saying, we approve this mission and think it’s so important to the nation that it’s fair to ask our servicemembers to risk their lives. But members of Congress, for some reason, and I know the reason, it was cowardice after 2002, voting for the Iraq war and seeing it go badly, voting for the war against al Qaeda and seeing it mushroom into wars all over the world. Members of Congress seem to have developed an allergy to their constitutional responsibility, and they’d rather hide under the desk and let a president take us to war and not vote, not vote if they can avoid it. But there’s no easy pass around the Constitution, especially when it is with respect to our kids’ lives. I made a pledge when I became a senator in 2013, that after having been governor and watched thousands and thousands of Virginians deploy into wars in the Middle East, and many not come back, or some come back injured, or some come back having seen their best friends injured or killed, many coming back with mental health issues, the number of suicides of 9-11 war veterans is much higher than actually even the number of our troops who were killed in those wars. The mental health consequences, the physical health consequences, go on for a very long time. And I made a pledge when I came to the Senate in 2013 that I would stand up against any president who tried to start a war unconstitutionally without coming to Congress. And I did so. I’ve done so with respect to Democratic and Republican presidents. And I also made a pledge that I would especially try to stop unnecessary wars, wars that were stupid, wars that weren’t carefully thought out. In this particular case, after having attended the classified briefing yesterday, and having seen the statements of our president and the administration’s military and diplomatic leaders, I can say this is an unnecessary war. Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States, as that phrase has traditionally been used to determine whether we need to take defensive action. There is no reason, in my view, no reason that we should be at war with Iran. But if my colleagues differ with me, then they should introduce a war authorization and vote for it. Instead, what many would like to do would be allow the president to take this step and then not be held accountable for their vote. Yesterday, a member of the Republican majority took the floor of the Senate and complained about me forcing this vote, which is a bipartisan resolution, and said I’m gumming up the work of the Senate by forcing Congress to vote on whether we should be at war with Iran. Well, what is the work? What is the work of the Senate? If the work of the Senate does not include a debate about whether it’s a good idea to send our sons and daughters into war, then I don’t know what the work of the Senate is. I think the work of the Senate is not hiding under our desks and letting our president risk the lives of our troops without commenting upon it.”
- “So we’re going to have a vote today. I’m realistic. I think it will be tough. But I want to assure everybody, this vote today is the first step, not the last step, because there are other tools at our disposal to continue to raise the question about whether this war is worth it. Is it worth rising energy costs? A president who said he was going to bring prices down for Americans first imposed taxes via tariffs that have raised costs on food, housing, energy, groceries. He broke his promise about bringing costs down, and now this war is causing energy markets to spike. So in addition to risking the lives of our troops and a president who said he was going to be a peace president and end interventionism overseas, has used the military more to intervene overseas in his first year than any president in recent history, and Americans are suffering in their pocketbooks as a result. It’s time to get back and keep promises, not break them. Let’s focus on the lives of Americans at home and bringing costs down for them. Let’s focus on extracting ourselves from unnecessary wars abroad. And I’m going to do what I can, even if my colleagues stand up and say I’m making their lives painful by making them vote on something that they would rather avoid. I’m going to keep doing it.”
- [Question: “Are you concerned about the reports that Israel may have forced President Trump’s hand in this? Secretary of State Rubio saying earlier that President Trump was in a sense forced to act because the imminent, the urgent threat would have followed an Israeli attack and therefore the fallout on American troops. What it might do in terms of American support for Israel or indeed, even in extreme cases, anti-Semitism?”] “I’m very worried about that. You know, there’s things that I learned in the classified briefing yesterday that I can’t really reveal, but I can say this. What Secretary Rubio said, which has not been contradicted in any way either in public or classified that I’m aware of, was that the U.S. decided to invade Iran because Israel was going to and if Israel did, then the U.S. might be retaliated against. As far as I know, I don’t think the U.S. has ever initiated war because of an action that another nation was going to take. And so there were a lot of questions about, well, did you ask Israel not to do this because U.S. troops would be in harm’s way? And the answer to that question was very unsatisfactory. No nation should force the hands of the United States, should force the United States to send our sons and daughters into war. No nation, no matter how close an ally, should make a decision about the lives of our sons and daughters. Only the United States should make that decision. And I’m deeply troubled by what I heard both publicly and privately yesterday.”
- “I’m definitely looking at Article 5, which I’m sure everybody on the call knows is an obligation for collective self-defense within NATO members. Interestingly enough, the only time that NATO Article 5 has been triggered was after the 9-11 attack. And European nations said we will collectively come to the defense of the United States and joined us in the efforts to battle al-Qaida in Afghanistan. A lot of people talk about NATO when they think it’s the U.S. does for others. The only time that collective self-defense has been triggered was to help the United States at a time when we had been viciously attacked by al-Qaida. Exactly what the Article 5 ramifications are of that incursion in Turkish airspace, I’m not sure. Article 5 doesn’t automatically kick in. It kicks in at the request of a NATO member, and I’m unaware of any request by Turkey. I am nervous about Turkey. News this morning suggests that the Trump administration is using the CIA to try to arm Kurds in northern Iran. That’s what the news says. I don’t know anything about this from classified, so I’m not sharing any classified material with you. But traditionally, Turkey has been very worried about Kurdish separatists in Turkey. And so the Kurdistan area kind of straddles Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. I worry about what Turkey and NATO ally would think if Kurds are armed in northern Iran. Would they view that as a hostile action? And that’s just a part of this problem. If Israel was going to invade Iran, that’s one thing. But once the U.S. jumps in, now you see Iranian attacks on the UAE, on Qatar, on Kuwait. Kuwait being attacked led Kuwait to shoot down three U.S. F-15s. Thank God all the crew members were safe, but those are very expensive aircraft. And when you have an ally shooting down your own planes, it suggests the lack of coordination and planning. And I think that came from the U.S. took this action without telling allies what we were going to do or giving them sufficient notice that they might be victimized by retaliation and they needed to get their defense posture up and ready. This is a widely mutating conflict, and it’s drawing in more countries, exposing more to risk, not only Americans but others. And my office is now dealing, as other members of Congress are dealing with requests from Virginians who are stranded abroad trying to get home.”
- “…the vote in June, what Republicans said, I did a War Powers Resolution following the strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities, no war in Iran without a vote of Congress. When the vote came up, you file the motion, takes 10 days to ripen, then you can call it up on the floor. By the time the vote came up, the mission was over. And so the Republicans took the floor and said, withdraw the U.S. forces from hostilities. There are no hostilities. The mission is over. So that’s why they voted against it then with the exception of Senator Paul. Why now when this has been growing? We filed this resolution in January, Senator Paul, and I think on the 29th of January or early February, the latest, it ripened within 10 days. I think when it ripened, we were on a Senate recess. The first time it could have been called up was last week. And I actually would have liked to call it up before President Trump invaded Iran. But I have a number of people who are going to vote with me today who said they would vote against me in advance because there was an ongoing negotiation between U.S. and Iran and Oman, and they didn’t want the vote to change the possibility of finding a diplomatic path. And some voted against me because they said President Trump is bluffing. He’s not really going to invade Iran. So Senator Paul and I, having heard from colleagues, decided that we would call the vote up this week rather than last week for those reasons.”
- “There are two circumstances under which a president can initiate military action that are legally justified. One is if there’s been a previous congressional authorization of such action. So the 2001 authorization that enabled the U.S. to take military action against those responsible for the 9-11 attack or their affiliates, that was an authorization that’s been used by multiple presidents, President Bush, President Obama, President Trump, President Biden, to counter terrorist groups that are connected to al Qaeda. President Obama, for example, used it to counter ISIS. ISIS was a spinoff group from al Qaeda. So when there has been a congressional authorization, even if it was 10 years ago, presidents can take military action if Congress has authorized them to. That’s not an illegal war. May or may not be a good thing to do, but it’s not illegal. The second circumstance is the president under Article 2 is the commander in chief. And it’s always been understood that a president can defend the nation against ongoing or imminent attack. Give you an example, President Biden, and then it has gone over into President Trump as well, has used U.S. military action against the Houthis in Yemen who are firing at U.S. ships in the Red Sea. That’s self-defense. A president can always engage in self-defense without coming to Congress. It’s a good idea to come to Congress and make sure we’re all on board, but there’s no legal requirement that you come to Congress. So when a president acts pursuant to a congressional authorization or an imminent self-defense of the country, the president is on clear legal ground, that’s lawful. It’s only when a president wants to pursue military action that’s not authorized by Congress, that’s not an imminent self-defense, that frankly the Constitution comes into play and the president has to come to Congress. The president’s actions against Venezuela were not covered by any congressional authorization, so I told him you can’t do it and I forced a vote. These actions against Iran are not covered by a congressional authorization, so I’ve told him you can’t do it and I’m forcing a vote. President Obama wanted to take military action against Syria when Syria used chemical weapons against its own citizens. That was a horrible violation of human rights, but it was not authorized by Congress and I persuaded President Obama not to start, not to use military force, but instead come to Congress and seek authorization. We granted that authorization in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The president didn’t unilaterally take military action and then as the bill moved to the floor, Syria agreed to give up its chemical weapons stockpile and so we didn’t need to actually wage military action against Syria for that reason. So if a president is acting pursuant to a congressional authorization or an imminent self-defense, the president’s on solid legal ground. Anything else requires Congress. Anything else requires Congress. All the briefings, both public and private, showed me that there was no imminent threat to the United States that warranted this, and so the president here is acting with no congressional authorization and with no imminent threat from Iran to the United States, thus clearly violating the Constitution in my view.”
- “So the passage of the resolution would suggest U.S. forces removed from hostilities against Iran. That wouldn’t necessarily mean the Ford comes home. It just means that the Ford would not be used in any military actions against Iran. And I think if that were the case, Navy leadership would say, okay, if we can’t use the Ford in military actions against Iran, I strongly believe the Navy would say that the Ford should come home. But all it means is you can’t use these assets and hostilities against Iran. And let’s see, the second half of your question, oh, what’s my message? Look, my message is first, sorrow to families who have lost loved ones or whose loved ones have been injured, prayers for families who are worried about their loved ones, and a commitment to families. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that an unconstitutional war is ended and that an unwise war is ended. I’m one senator. I’m in the minority. I don’t get to say what goes for the country. I have to try to persuade others. But this vote today is just the start for me. And I’m going to continue to point out that the 25 years of wars in the Middle East that led up to this really produced nothing but pain and sacrifice for the United States. And we shouldn’t be doing this. And that’s my commitment to Virginia families who have loved ones in the military.”
- “Iran is a bad actor. And if you believe that, then fine, vote for a war authorization against Iran. I think even people who believe Iran is a bad actor should not want this president to end run the Constitution and just say, I can go to war with whoever I want. I mean, thus far, the president has gone, has used military against boats in international waters, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria. The president has threatened war against Cuba, Greenland, the Columbia and Mexico. I mean, where is it going to end? And so I understand Iranian Americans and Iranian citizens who want to have a better chapter for their country going forward. I clearly understand that. But that doesn’t mean that American sons and daughters should be sent to their possible death without doing it the right way. You know, my obligation to our troops is higher than my obligation to the nation of Iran. And if our troops lives should be put at risk in order to do a mission like this, it should only be after a debate and vote of Congress. And I will say I have spent much of my time in the last 13 years in the classified facility, hearing information about threats posed by Iran and other nations in the United States as recently as yesterday afternoon. The administration has articulated no imminent threat from Iran to U.S. positions. We were in the middle of a negotiation with Iran that we terminated to bomb them. The negotiation that was being held on Thursday was not announced to be dead, gone and over forever. It was an ongoing diplomatic negotiation. And we decided to abandon diplomacy just as we abandoned diplomacy under the first Trump term. There was a nuclear deal with Iran that was limiting their nuclear program, which is a good thing for the world. And it was working according to the members of that negotiating team and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And President Trump decided in his first term, I’m unaware of any U.S. president ever doing this, to tear up a diplomatic deal that was working. President Trump’s own secretaries of state and defense said it’s working. Don’t tear it up. He did it anyway. And many of us predicted if you tear up a diplomatic deal, you are paving a path to war. Maybe not next week, maybe not next month, but as soon as you abandon diplomacy, you are paving a path to Iranian aggression growing and growing and growing. That’s exactly what happened. We were in a diplomatic negotiation last week. And again, Donald Trump walked away from the table and here we are. So I have great sympathy from Iranians. I have Iranian-Americans on my staff and I have Iranian-American friends and the suffering of their families abroad is very, very real. But the suffering of Iranians is not an automatic, we should risk U.S. troops, our sons and daughters in war against Iran. You got to do it the right way, not the wrong way.”
- “…it’s now just not just Israel and the United States. There have been attacks in Saudi Arabia and Dubai and Kuwait um and and maybe other nations as well. It’s a widening conflict. I was not able to watch the secretary [Hegseth]’s press conference. And look, the US military is better than any in the world. And when we go in, our troops are going to do very very well. The only issue that has ever been a problem for us is whether the civilian leadership is making the right decision about how to send our troops into wars. And again, you go back to the the framers of the Constitution, they had a very clear-eyed view of this. They were used to kings and monarchs and emperors that would start wars for for bad reasons. Sometimes good reasons, but an awful lot of times for bad reasons. And the framers of the Constitution in 1787, even though George Washington was the president and they loved George Washington, they didn’t believe even George Washington as a single person should make a decision about whether the nation should go to war. It’s too big a decision for one person. And that’s why the Constitution said if you’re going to go to war, you got to have a you got to have a vote in Congress. So, I don’t doubt that American troops are achieving significant gains in this military action. I don’t doubt it for a minute. I’m an armed services committee member from a military state with a kid who’s a Marine, and I don’t doubt that our military perform extremely well. But they are owed the right decision making by their civilian leaders. And in this case, going to war without Congress. Going to war without an imminent threat. Going to war without a clear rationale. Is it to stop a nuclear program? Is it to stop a missile program? Is it to change a regime? Is it to seize oil? Is it because we thought they interfered with the 2020 election? Donald Trump has said that. Is it for some other reason? Reporting came out yesterday suggesting military commanders were telling their troops going to war that this was a war that was inspired because Donald Trump was chosen by Jesus to bring about Armageddon. Many troops have reported on their superiors telling them that that’s the reason we’re going to war with no clear reason and no clear plan. And the absence of a plan is demonstrated when you see something like Kuwait shooting down US F-15s. No clear reason, no clear plan. No wonder 60% of Americans say this was a bad idea.”
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