Video: Sen. Tim Kaine Says in Tuesday Redistricting Vote, Virginians Will Decide “whether they want to have a congressional delegation that will stand  up against Donald Trump’s tyranny”

This morning, Sen. Tim Kaine handled himself well on Fox “News” (in air quotes) Sunday, but as always, the “questions” (again, in air quotes) were wildly biased to the right, not in good faith, bizarrely “framed” (in a pro-Republican/anti-Democratic way), rude interruptions, etc. So remind me again, what’s the point to Democrats going on this far-right-propaganda network? Because no, I don’t believe that it convinces any Fox “News” viewers to change their minds, but I *do* believe that by Democrats going on that horrible network, it helps legitimize the completely illegitimate…

With that, see below for video and a few highlights from Sen. Tim Kaine’s appearance this morning on said far-right-propaganda (definitely not news!) network.

• Sen. Tim Kaine: “I wish the State Department hadn’t sacked all their experts on the region. Using Witkoff and Kushner doesn’t really make sense. Vance or Rubio or Waltz is a different matter. They they are the kinds of folks who should be doing this. Well, here’s what I think needs to happen. You need to get Iran back to the place that they agreed to in 2015/16 that they would never seek to acquire, develop nuclear weapons. They agreed to that. Donald Trump tore that up. You need to get them back to that. And then you need to get the Straits of Hormuz open. They were open before this war started on February 28. But I think they have to be open to all. And so what happened is we announced the ceasefire, that needs to be extended and that the Straits would be open. And they were open briefly but President Trump continued to blockade Iranian ports and so Iran reclosed the Straits. If they’re going to be open, I think they have to open to all. And it’s my hope that in the negotiations we would first agree to extend the ceasefire. Then we would talk about this nuclear issue. And look, I think the US has other issues on the table too about ballistic missiles or support for terrorism in the region. And I think Iran is going to say, ‘You’ve assassinated our leaders, you’ve bombed civilian infrastructure, bridges, and schools, we want help in rebuilding what you have helped destroy.’ But it’s much easier to have that discussion if there’s a ceasefire and the Straits are open. So that’s my hope.”
• Sen. Tim Kaine: “…they agreed to give up their nuclear program in exchange for sanctions, relief, etc. in the JCPOA. So, I don’t think you can assume they won’t make an agreement on the ballistic missile program. But I’m sure that there there are asks that they’ll have, and I’m I don’t know what those asks would be. I mean, you’ve seen some paper proposals floating back and forth. And I  don’t think this is going to be an easy negotiation because the earlier one took 20 months and then when the US decided to walk away from it, I think that’ll make Iran skeptical. But the good news is if you can get the ceasefire to extend and get the Straits open as they were on February 27th, then you don’t have to rush the negotiation. You can take the time to get that right without bombs falling and commerce choked off and everybody’s gas prices going crazy all around the world.”

• Sen. Tim Kaine: “Not starting an illegal war and and not tearing up a diplomatic deal. I disagree with the Wall Street Journal’s assessment that every president left the next president worse off. One president did a nuclear agreement with Iran where on the first page they pledged never to acquire develop nuclear weapons and they granted intrusive inspection rights and they limited enrichment…and those limits were similar to the limits on other countries as well. But before the deal, we had no ability, no transparency in the Iranian system.  So what we had with the agreement was an agreement never to get weapons and inspections and limitations and that then would give us a legal justification if they broke the agreement and went toward a nuclear weapon where we could talk about military options. Instead, President Trump tore up the deal. If you make diplomacy impossible, you make war inevitable. And even his own Cabinet told him he shouldn’t have done it. And here we are. American troops have died, others are being injured, and Americans are paying a dollar more for gas because of President Trump’s war of choice. I think it is very, very unwise after 25 years of war in the Middle East to go back into it. And I have Virginians like those on the Ford carrier who are deployed in the region way past when they were supposed to come home. And they’re asking me, why are we doing this?”

• Sen. Tim Kaine: “Shannon, you’ve omitted one thing, and that is Donald Trump decided to use mid-decade redistricting in other states to rig election results. And just what he did in North Carolina, the GOP taking extra seats in North Carolina, led them to be able to pass the reconciliation bill that cut hundreds of millions of dollars of Medicaid to Virginians. That has kicked 80,000 Virginians off SNAP benefits. We already have hospitals and health clinics in Virginia that are announcing closures because of that bill that President Trump helped engineer with North Carolina. So the question is do Virginians just sit back and let President Trump engineer a mid-decade rigging of the district and then there’s the other question…90% of Virginians are not Democrats, that’s true, but about a 100% of Virginiaians want election results to be respected. We’re deeply worried that Donald Trump will try to interfere with the election results this November or in 2028 because we saw him do it before. And we have to have a Congress that will stand up to it. In 2021, all five Republicans in Virginia went along with Donald Trump and his effort to overturn election results. And so we’re giving Virginians a chance to vote, which Republican states have not done, about whether they want to have a congressional delegation that will stand  up against Donald Trump’s tyranny if he tries to interfere with our elections.”