Video: On “This Week,” Sen. Tim Kaine Says Trump Tearing Up Iran Nuclear Deal Was “one of the worst [foreign policy] decisions…ever made by an American president”

Sen. Tim Kaine on ABC’s “This Week” this morning:

“I’m not sure what President Trump’s red lines are, because they seem to change all the time. His rationale for the war has changed all the time. You know, the threat to bomb the entire civilization and before that, OK, we’re not going to bomb the entire civilization. And I don’t know exactly what the offer was that JD Vance put on the table; he had a brief press conference and he said we need to make sure that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon. But Martha, as you know, Iran entered into an agreement with United States and other nations – both allies of the US and China and Russia in 2016 – reaffirming that they would never purchase, seek, or acquire a nuclear weapon. Donald Trump tore that up. He tore up the restrictions on uranium production. He tore up the restrictions on centrifuge production. He tore up the deal that allowed intrusive inspections in Iran. So JD Vance says now that, well, Iran won’t agree to what they agreed to 10 years ago. I’m sure Iran wonders if we agree to it, will the United States tear it up again and bomb our civilian infrastructure and kill school children and engage in an assassination campaign against our leadership? This is not going to be an easy negotiation because the last negotiation that led to a control of Iran’s nuclear program, the US made the decision to tear it up and walk away from the deal. I think that decision by President Trump to tear up a diplomatic deal will go down in history as one of the worst decisions in the foreign policy space ever made by an American president. If you make diplomacy impossible, you tend to make war inevitable.”

“Well, Martha, we need to extend the ceasefire. We we shouldn’t be in this war to begin with. You know, what people need to realize is we had a diplomatic control over Iran not seeking a nuclear weapon that Donald Trump decided to tear up. And we had an open Strait of Hormuz and reasonable gas prices up until February 27th, when Donald Trump launched this war without the support of allies, the American public or Congress. And so the ceasefire, while it is not perfectly holding, we need to find a way to extend it past April 21st. Both parties when they left the negotiation in Pakistan said the door wasn’t closed to additional negotiation. And so even an imperfect ceasefire is better than resuming full war. I’m going to force a vote on another war powers resolution in Congress this week in the Senate, because returning to full war will just compound the suffering of American troops and the American citizenry who are suffering under a very very devastated economy because of what Donald Trump has done.”

UPDATE 11:15 am – Also, see below for Sen. Mark Warner on CNN this morning talking about Iran…

“I know people have said, ‘Well, even though you may not not like how we got there, what do we do now?’ Because the president can declare victory. And…I’ve not met an American yet who wants to send their son or daughter to another ground war in the Middle East, especially in Iran. But, you know, if we declare victory today, luckily, we can maybe then reopen the straits and we can move forward. But Iran will claim with some vindication that they’ve taken on the two major military powers in the world uh United States and Israel and at least fought them to a draw. Our Gulf nation states who look to us for protection. We’ve seen that we’ve helped some but take the UAE. The Emiratis actually has been bombed and missile attacked many more times than Israel. Are they going to hedge their bets? And because we did this with Israel alone and no other allies  this is where the kind of actions of, you know, President Trump threatening NATO or threatening Greenland hurts us when we look to those NATO allies for either assistance or support in this kind of action. Again, I shed no tears for the Iranian leadership that been killed. They are awful. But I don’t know how outside of the president’s own bubble he can somehow claim that Iran has been totally destroyed when we see them continue to strike, when they when they have virtual control of the Strait. And unfortunately the regime is if anything filled with more radicals than before.”

On Face the Nation, Sen. Mark Warner says “even if the President declares victory tomorrow, those high gas prices will be with us for months…“Asian countries are shutting down their economies one day a week because the price of oil is skyrocketing so much. We buy a lot of stuff from Taiwan, South Korea, and countries around Asia. All the prices are going up.” Says he’ll “take a look” at a supplemental funding request…

Here’s the full video of Sen. Mark Warner’s appearance this morning on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Here’s the full video of Sen. Tim Kaine’s appearance this morning on ABC’s “This Week.”