See below for video and highlights from Sen. Mark Warner’s and Sen. Tim Kaine’s appearances this morning on the Sunday talks shows. First, here’s Sen. Warner:
“I think the president has started a war of choice. There was no imminent threat to the United States so the decision to put our service members in harm’s way and bases around the region in harm’s way was entirely based upon the president’s decision, not an imminent threat to America. I think it is incumbent that the President of United States comes before the American people and the Congress and makes the case of why he has chosen to go to war at this point. You know, ironically, if the president had chosen to take one of these actions back in early January when the Iranian people were on the streets in the millions, you could make a case because that might have nudged the regime into a dramatic change. He couldn’t make that choice because the aircraft carrier that would have assisted that operation was off the coast of Venezuela at that point. And our allies in the region, in Europe in particular, who would have been helping us make that choice in January, were very focused on the president’s crazy folly around Greenland. So the fact that he has chosen now, why now as opposed to a few weeks from now, to have given the negotiations a bit more time to see if they play out? Now, listen, I will be the first to acknowledge having the Supreme Leader and other major leaders of the Iranian regime eliminated is good for the region, good for the world. But for anyone to pretend or to assume that this is over at this point, that Iran is not going to continue to strike back – and thank god so far it appears we’ve not lost any of our service members – but the president himself said on Friday night when he launched this war that he expected casualties, so I think there’s still got to be a case to the American people. And again, this was a guy that was going to keep us out of endless wars in the Middle East…I saw no intelligence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States of America – none.”
Next, here’s Sen. Tim Kaine on Fox “News” Sunday (I know, I know…ugh):
- “This is an illegal war…the constitution can’t be changed by statute; the constitution says no declaration of war without Congress…if you’re going to initiate war, you need Congress – the president not only did not come to Congress, he acted without even notification for the vast majority of us.”
- “More importantly, though, haven’t we learned something from 25 years of war in the Middle East?…It looks like this president hasn’t learned a thing…All of the intelligence I’ve seen in 13 years on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees tell me there was no imminent threat from Iran to justify sending our sons and daughters into war.”
- “It’s been 70 years of back and forth [with Iran]…and if more war was the answer, then we would have found the answer before now….[Trump] said he’d be a president of peace, not war…instead, what you’ve seen is – let me count them, Iran twice, Cuba, Venezuela, strikes in the Pacific, strikes in the Caribbean, strikes in Nigeria and threatening strikes in Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Greenland…Prices are up, growth is slowing, jobs are down, and we’re going to see energy costs go up even more because of this ill-considered war launched by the president without any real provocation.”
- “It’s amazing, the Trump administration was able to get Iran to a major set of concessions around their nuclear program, but decided to bomb them anyway…Iran showed in the mid-2010s that it would reach a nuclear agreement and live by it…the JCPOA was by all accounts working…Trump ignored the advice of his key advisors, tore up the deal…This was was almost in the cards as soon as the president made the decision that the United States would walk way from diplomacy; that was tragic mistake…”
Here’s more from Sen. Mark Warner, this time on MSNOW’s “The Weekend” show:
- “I would characterize the meetings is, this was much better consultation than prior to the other Trump military actions where there was no consultation. I think we got a series of options. Much of the consultation was done before the president had made any final decision. And what I come back to is, the story of why now seems to keep changing. Early in the week it seemed like this was an attempt to go after Iran’s nuclear capabilities, which by the way the president had claimed had been obliterated seven months ago when we took that strike. Obviously, they had not been obliterated. Then it moved into discussion of Iran’s ballistic missile capability that could strike our bases or Israel. And now it seems to have morphed into regime change. So all this means in my mind is that there was no imminent threat to America. So the president chose to start this war right now, put our troops in harm’s way- he even acknowledged in his video on Friday night that he expects there’ll be American casualties – and when the president chooses to take our country to war, the Constitution’s clear; he’s got to come to the American public and the Congress and get approval. This is not a king. He cannot do this on his own, even though he so many of his actions kind of don’t reflect the legal approach. But it’s absolutely essential right now that he comes and explains what is the goal. I think it’s good news that some of the senior Iranian leadership, they were an awful regime, were taken out. But what next? As David Ignatius said, you know, does this mean we’re going to have to put American boots on the ground if the Iranian people rise up and the regime starts to brutally murder them? Have we now started another endless war in the Middle East where we are going to get further drawn in? And what is our ultimate goal? I don’t know the ultimate goal. I do know this. There was no imminent threat to America. So, this was a war of choice by Donald Trump.”
- “I was concerned that you that…obviously, Israel has a set of objectives, the United States has a set of objectives. What I want to make sure is that American foreign policy is driven by first and foremost by American interests, particularly when we’re talking about putting our troops in harm’s way.”
- “I think that the Israeli concerns were more imminent. Israel has felt for a long time that the Iranian threat was existential. I don’t deny that. But also even in terms of imminent threat to Israel, I was not convinced of that as well. So there was a decision made to make a choice to go to war at this point, put our troops in harm’s way, and you know, so far we’ve not seen American casualties, but it would be naive for anyone to think that this operation is over.”
- “I hope the president’s right, but I absolutely don’t believe that is the expectation of most of the intelligence or military community that this is not going to be easy when you take out some of the leadership. And the chances are pretty darn high that the second people who replace the Supreme Leader may be even further to the right, more dangerous than the current regime, as bad as it was.”
- “Iran has been a threat. Iran was trying to reconstitute and build up its both conventional and potentially nuclear capabilities. Over time would that threat grow? Yes. But why now? Why now versus a month from now after you could have potentially given the negotiations more time, particularly when it appeared that at least from the Qataris, who were the mediators, that progress was being made. I don’t know. And that’s why I think it is the job of the president when he has chosen to put American troops in harm’s way to come to the American public and to come to Congress and lay out why now – what was the threat, what was the reasoning and get approval of Congress. The president, this is not some reaction activity. Often times with the War Powers Act is after the president has to act because he is responding to something else. This is not a response to this was an American-driven initiative by bringing this so-called armada into the region and then acting. This was a war of choice and the president has to describe why he made that choice. I don’t have an answer but I sure as heck know this. Later today, I’m going to be down in Hampton Roads around Norfolk where a lot of these sailors are deployed, and I know I’m going to be running into their family members, and I can imagine the kind of questions they’re going to ask me. Why is my son or daughter potentially in harm’s way, potentially to be a casualty of war? What is the reason? And I don’t have a great explanation for them.”
- “I trust the integrity of the intelligence community. I worry that the pressure on the intelligence community to shade their answers to meet the president’s political objective scares the hell out of me. And my quick comment on that is the evidence was when the general in charge of the Defense Intelligence Agency who accurately portrayed the bombing, it was successful but didn’t obliterate, by saying the truth, he got fired.”Â
