See below for video and highlights/partial transcript (bolding added by me for emphasis of some key points that jumped out at me) from Sen. Mark Warner’s press availability earlier today:
- “I spent an enormous amount of time this week reviewing the policy or lack of policy around the administration’s efforts to kind of blow up these drug boats or alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, as well as the president’s increasingly hostile actions towards Venezuela...This administration’s policy of let’s just kill the people on the boats, sometimes not even try to sink them versus why don’t we interdict these boats, show the drugs, show the world in our country, the narco traffickers is really puzzling to me since obviously we interdicted yesterday a oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela that shows we could do this, but the administration has chosen not to. I’ve been particularly focused on the first strike that took place way back on September 2nd, where and I’ve seen the video – a boat was struck, survivors were there and 30 45 minutes later, additional strikes were taken to kill the survivors. I believe this video unedited should be seen by the American public. This administration can’t have it both ways, where it shows videos blowing up boats, but that in this case then not showing the aftermath. And even if the Secretary of Defense Mr. Hegseth, who I think is not competent for the job, somehow says sources and methods, which as a former intel chair and now vice chair I don’t accept that, you could say well then at least show the time of the survivors their actions and then the military strike. How is that any different than showing all these other videos where you show at least a clip? In the defense bill, there was a requirement that this video be released. I do think Secretary Rubio, who was in the briefing with me yesterday, having been a former senator, understands Congress’s role and responsibility. But to say the least, this video is chilling. And my concern as well is, you know, it could lead people to the conclusion that Americans soldiers are taking potentially illegal actions. I’m not going to reach that conclusion because it’s such a damning conclusion. I want to make sure I get all the data first. I’ve requested from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs the execution order, the after-action report, the legal opinion that was on this strike particular, not the overarching legal opinion or on the overarching legal opinion. It was not even printed till September 5th, 3 days after this September 2nd strike. And I got a real questions. Was it altered because of the the images and the actions taken by the military on September 2nd? So I expect to get those documents. I expect Hegseth to deliver at least to the Congress if not to the public this video. Because I hear regularly from sailors’ families and others who are part of the these efforts to blow up these boats. Is this legal? Are my kids in harm’s way? And we’ve now I think…north of 80 people have been killed. And other than killing folks on boats, I’m not sure what the whole policy is. Does this mean that if anybody who is a drug individual and taking fentanyl, because this is all about cocaine down to the Caribbean taking fentanyl across the border, are they going to be shot up…is it open season on folks who are distributing these drugs in America? Again, I’m open to taking aggressive action against narcoterrorists, agreed. But on many of these boats, we’re not even sure who’s on the boat. So, there’s huge issues around both the legality and the effectiveness of this policy in the Caribbean.”
- “The second piece of this is the question around President Maduro in Venezuela. He is a bad guy. I’ve said repeatedly and I’ve said to you guys before, the Biden administration screwed up when the Venezuelan people voted overwhelmingly to throw Maduro out. Matter of fact, the opposition leader…received the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday. But the idea that we have assembled this fleet off the coast of Venezuela and the president has not articulated are we going to try to militarily take Maduro out? Is he going to ask Congress to declare war? What are we sharing with our friends and allies in the region? Literally France, the Dutch, the British who have island possessions in the region are not sharing intelligence now because of our actions, both on the boats and now potentially with Venezuela. And you don’t have to be a great student of history to know that American intervention in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America usually does not end well. And this is extraordinarily irresponsible for the president not to lay out to the American people and to Congress and to the world for that matter what his goal. So real questions a lot of time on those issues.”
- “Secondly, we will be voting the House passed yesterday and we’ll be voting at some point over the next few days on on the defense authorization bill. There are a number of good things. Our military will get a 3.8% pay increase. There’s additional items that I’ve got in on military housing. But there are two very troubling pieces of this bill. I’ll still vote for it, but they’re very troubling. One is, as we approach next month and the one-year anniversary of the terrible tragedy that took place at National Airport, somebody snuck into this bill the ability for the military to kind of back off on some of the restrictions we put, particularly in terms of helicopter flights around National. We know National is dangerous. Tim Kaine and I have fought for years saying don’t continue to cram more flights in. But now to kind of suddenly in the dark of night try to take out or allow the military to relax their safety provisions, I think is irresponsible. Now again the military’s not taken those actions yet and I’m going to stay on them not to relax. But why put this into this defense bill in the first place?”
- “Second issue is the question of housing. Now the defense bill usually does get other items added to it. There were literally a litany of 20 bills that passed the Senate unanimously that would lower the cost of housing. One of my bills said, ‘how do you redevelop strip centers?’ Another looked at how can we get more affordable housing uh in with greater density. There’s questions about how we can give more support to renters. There’s bills to incent communities to move the the zoning and regulatory process quicker. You know, I’m not saying there was a single item here that was going to solve the housing crisis. But if you want to talk about affordability, this had unanimous support in the Senate that would drive down costs and the House Republicans arbitrarily took it out. One more example of, you know, the fact that the president who keeps claiming the economy is A++ plus. I hope he goes to every contested district in America and makes that same claim, because Americans are smart enough to know costs are going up – and one of the major areas is housing. The other is healthcare, which will bring me to my last comment. I’ve just voted on the Republican plan. It candidly is a joke. It would have added $1,500 to a health savings account. $1,500 once a year. Doesn’t even meet the increase. I had one of my Virginians come up and testify yesterday…Kathleen lives down in Newport News. She’s got a business, her husband’s got a business, she pays about $544 a month. Now, when you see the price increase and you get rid of subsidies, her rates go up to $1,500 a month. She doesn’t know if she’s going to be able to keep her business. And the idea that a one-time chunk of dollars into a health savings account when you also would give up um all of the protections that the ACA has on pre-existing conditions, on what’s called the lifetime cap. it would allow the insurance companies to even be more predatory. And it’s not a serious…proposal from the Republicans. I’m not even sure all the Republicans going to vote for it. I’ll be voting for the Democratic position this afternoon that would extend these premiums for three years, give us time for reforms if there are ways to look at, for example, making sure there’s not insurance fraud. Count me in. But my Republican friends have drugged this out so long, literally, Virginia families have to decide by December 15th what plan they’re going to buy. And all the data indicates for the 24 million Americans who buy their insurance on the marketplace, about four or five million are going to go without health insurance. And what does that mean? Well, it means they’re going to show up at the emergency room, which means that those of us who have healthc care coverage, the wait times are longer, but more importantly, the overall costs of our insurance is going to go up, because if you take this many people out of the risk pools, as they’re called, and put them back in the emergency room, what’s called uncompensated care, where the hospital has to eat the cost, what does that mean? Well, they simply are going to pass those costs on to folks with health insurance. It’s a disaster. it is an avoidable cliff. You know, we could even do the extension for a shorter period of time and then look at reform. But this is one more example of where the president who keeps saying everything’s perfect and the economy is roaring and and affordability is a hoax, I just hope folks remember when housing costs don’t go down and their health care rates go up, Donald Trump and his followers in Congress own this because they’ve not been responsible at all at trying to prevent this this cliff from happening. And it’s not something you can punt on until next year. People’s lives will be dramatically changed now. I mean, the number of folks who are going to have a dramatically different Christmas because they see their rates going up as Kathleen and her husband by over $1,000 a month. You know, if there’s going to be a Scrooge this year, his name is Donald J. Trump.”
- “[The seizure of an oil tanker] is an escalation. And again the Maduro government, they’re bad guys and again I think I mentioned you we we the previous administration should have helped push him out once the Venezuelan people voted to get rid of him. But the idea that we’ve got a whole fleet down there, many of them homeported in Norfolk, that they keep ratcheting up the pressure when there’s not been, you know, the president should come to the American people and come to Congress and say, ‘are we going to declare war on Venezuela? Is our goal regime change? How far are we going to go?’ I can tell you this. the actions the president is taking without asking Congress, which is again in the constitution- the president can declare war or Congress declares war. The president can ask Congress to do that but is I believe irresponsible. And if we’ve now got sailors and airmen and and marines in harm’s way in off the coast of Venezuela and the president’s not even said what our goal is, that’s not fair to those members of our military and frankly not fair to their families. Particularly as we’re in the holiday season and a lot of these folks are going to be away when and we don’t even know what the president’s goal was….I do not support war against Venezuela based upon the lack of facts the president has has [presented]…increase[d] sanctions on Venezuela and more pressure to get Maduro to leave? Yes. But to go to war without the president laying out a a strong case, I do not support. And the overwhelming overwhelming majority of Americans don’t support. Remember, this was going to be the guy that was going to end wars. Instead, you know, even where he claims that he’s brought peace, like in Africa, where Congo and Rwanda, they’re back at fighting. Thailand and Cambodia are fighting. Doing a photo op in the Oval Office and actually ending some of these conflicts are two different things. But this is again a president who’s big on showmanship, but not very good at articulating a policy or actually building alliances.”
- “Do I think in the absence of unprecedented partisan actions by this president that nonpartisan redistricting makes sense? Yes. Do I think that Virginia, if Virginia voters approve because this has to go to the voters, that we shouldn’t unilaterally disarm. Yeah. If the legislature chooses to move forward with this, particularly after all these other states have taken these partisan efforts. Again, I’m not sure any of this would have happened unless Donald Trump, you know, was putting pressure. I’ll be anxious to see what happens in Indiana today, putting enormous pressure to try to cook the elections in 2026. So, if these actions continue, I will support the redistricting efforts. But what’s different about Virginia than what took place in Texas or North Carolina, is Virginia voters get a say. None of this is going to happen unless Virginia voters approve.”
- “I’d ask to say first and foremost, let’s not let care become unaffordable right at Christmas time. That would be my first ask. My second ask would be Santa, help us think through how we don’t have artificial intelligence disrupt millions of jobs, especially for young people coming out of college. Third thing I’d say is, Santa, let’s sit down together and it’s just gotten too darn expensive for people to rent or buy a new home. And how can we make the notion of home ownership um attain obtainable? And fourth, I’d say, Santa…a lot of our our young young families can’t afford child care. So, if you got two folks working, Santa, let’s come up with some good ideas on how we can make child care safer. And then I’d say, Santa, I’m on my last one, which is kind of a nerdy one, I am the in the middle of crypto market structure legislation and it is a really hard hard thing to sort through and I’d say Santa could you use your magic dust and make us figure out how America can still lead in innovation in this new digital asset class category but not end up screwing consumers and let’s make sure it’s fair.”
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WARNER APPLAUDS HOUSE PASSAGE OF HIS BIPARTISAN BILL TO REPEAL UNION-BUSTING EXECUTIVE ORDERS
~ In a bipartisan 231-195 vote, the House of Representatives voted to restore collective bargaining protections for the federal workforce ~
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) released the following statement after the House of Representatives voted to pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act, bipartisan legislation to repeal two union-busting executive orders signed by President Trump and restore collective bargaining rights and workplace protections for federal workers:
“Federal workers are the backbone of agencies that keep Americans safe, healthy, and informed. They inspect our food, support our troops, respond to natural disasters, and protect our safety. They deserve basic workplace protections that prevent retaliation, discrimination, and wrongful terminations.
“Today’s bipartisan vote in the House is an important step toward undoing one of the most sweeping attacks on federal workers in our nation’s history. President Trump’s executive orders ripped away collective bargaining rights from more than a million public servants under a false national security pretext in order to make it easier to fire experienced, nonpartisan civil servants and replace them with political loyalists.
“I’m grateful to my colleagues in the House, Democrats and Republicans alike, who stood up for these workers and rejected this administration’s union-busting campaign. Now it’s the Senate’s turn. I urge my colleagues to move quickly to pass this bipartisan bill so we can restore long-standing labor protections, safeguard the integrity of the civil service, and ensure the federal workforce can continue serving the American people.”
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