On CNN’s “State of the Union” (with the egregious Jake Tapper – gack), Sen. Mark Warner had the following to say:
- “My reaction is all Americans, and frankly I’ve got to believe the rest of the world, if we’re depending on Donald Trump’s morality, to decide whether we put troops in harm’s way, that is not what our constitution set up [for]. That is why our country was founded – on the notion that one individual can’t take our country to war. You’ve got to consult with Congress, which this president has completely blown off throughout his whole first year. And I would say both Democrats and Republicans alike he’s not consulted with. And i think we’re in unprecedented ground. Again, six different nations attacked by American military in less than a year. And again, many of these regimes are bad guys. I agree. But America, the last thing I thought was Donald Trump was going to be the world’s policeman for his moral view of the world; that’s not what I think we signed up for.”
- Also: “Senator Mark Warner tells @FoxNewsSunday @JacquiHeinrich: ‘The Iranian regime is awful, and I stand with the Iranian people. But what I’m worried about is if we take a kinetic strike, does that actually unite the Iranian people in a way that the regime has not been able to? I know this is history, but the last time we intervened in Iran in a major way was 1953, when the CIA overthrew the Iranian regime to protect Iranian oil for the West. Many historians would argue that led to the… The Ayatollah. I think we can put outside pressure, I think rallying the rest of the world, but taking a kinetic strike unless there is a plan on what next. And I’ll remind your viewers, you know, we’ve got 20% of our fleet right now off the coast of Venezuela blockading that country. The USS Ford, which is one of our lead carriers, is supposed to be deployed to the Middle East, it’s now deployed off the coast of Venezuela. And the president has said we’re going to take Venezuelan oil. It will take two years to rebuild the Venezuelan oil infrastructure. Is our fleet going to stay there for two years? Even as good as our military is, it’s going to get stretched. And the President has said his only constraint in terms of how he uses American power is his own morality. And I’m just not sure that’s what the American people or the world signed up for. There is a reason why the Constitution says that no single individual can put our troops in harm’s way by themselves without consultation with Congress and making a case to the American people.'”
- Does Sen. Warner agree with Democrats (e.g., Ilhan Omar, AOC) that Renee Good’s death in Minneapolis was “murder?” Sen. Warner responds: “Listen, I’ve got issues with any public official, including the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem calling it domestic terrorism. I’m a little bit old fashioned. When an American citizen is killed by a federal law enforcement official, we ought to let the investigation take place without jumping to conclusions. I mean, that’s what our system is about. But I do think there are concerns…”
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