Video: Sen. Mark Warner Expresses Grave Concerns About Interference in 2026 Elections “from people…who will bow down to any Donald Trump wish”

See below for video, as well as a few highlights (I’m going to focus on stuff that’s relatively new, rather than repetitive), from Sen. Mark Warner’s press availability earlier today.

• “I couldn’t think that Mr. Trump could continue to surprise me, but he surprised me again yesterday. We have been working…on what we call the Road to Housing. It is a collection of about 40 different provisions that would increase the supply of housing in our country. We’re about 5 million units short of housing. So, this law – I’ve got part of f the additions that I added were saying how can we do a better job of converting old hotels, other buildings, strip centers into into affordable housing… these are sites that could be converted. It also, this legislation would have major abilities to make more modular housing, what we maybe called mobile homes years ago, but now modular housing is much cheaper to build offsite and bring to a site. It has a host of other provisions. It cuts down on red tape. This was overwhelmingly bipartisan and literally the chairs were set up for a signing ceremony. Because the American people, Virginians, want a more affordable cost of living, and housing is a key component of that. Average age of first-time home buyer is 40 now in America. That’s a disgrace. So, we were about to have this big celebration of actually getting something done that would address Americans concern. And then Trump cancelled the signing ceremony. Again, you can’t make this stuff up. Where we go from here? Luckily, it’s been passed by more than two-thirds in both houses. I hope it’ll still become law. But if there was anyone that had any doubt whether Donald Trump cares at all about affordability of Americans have to face with rising inflation, he doesn’t, and this is further evidence of that.”
• “July 4th… 250th anniversary; it’s a time, I think, for all Americans to reflect and look back. We are still a country in pursuit of that more perfect union. I think we live in the greatest country in the world. I am disappointed again that President Trump has decided to politicize this event and rather than celebrating America, it seems to be more about him. But that’s not going to deter me from getting out and around the Commonwealth.”
• “It’s a bipartisan success and then he kind of you know has taken it away and is holding it hostage for a bill that is not going to pass. The so-called Save Act, which is the biggest voter disenfranchisement effort in modern American history, literally since the civil rights movement. That bill will never pass. There’s not even Republican support for it here in the Senate. I do believe Road to Housing will become law. I hope that President Trump gets over his temper tantrum and just goes ahead and signs it. I think he probably will…This chaotic approach to being our chief executive, you know, is is detrimental. It undermines faith at Americans in all of our institutions. It obviously continues to make America look a little bit wacky to friend and foe alike around the world. None of this is is good. And if you can’t celebrate a overwhelmingly bipartisan bill about dealing with the problem we all acknowledge we’re 5 million units short of housing supply. Just because at the literally an hour or so before the signing Trump threw a temper tantrum. We deserve better.”
• “Outrageous, politically inspired [the US Postal Service proposal to hold back mail-in ballots in states that won’t share voter data with the Trump administration], and I know there will be efforts to take [Trump] to court. You know, the constitution is clear – elections are under the control of states and localities…And this is again the irony. For years, the biggest guardians of that state and local control of elections was the Republican Party. And the idea that you’re going to send your voter file to a clearly politicized administration where they could arbitrarily pick and choose, particularly by neighborhood, which voters they wanted to eliminate, it’s outrageous. And the Postmaster General, who I’ve not met, the prior Postmaster General I actually became a fan of. I was critical of him at first, Louis Dejoy, but we worked a lot on you know and he really screwed up when he was trying to do some changing of the Richmond system but he acknowledged it. We got it fixed. He would never have done this and he was a Trump appointee. I guess he was fired because he actually respected the law. I don’t know this new Postmaster General, but he is clearly incompetent and should not be in the job if he’s talking about going beyond the law and trying to hold hostage the postal service for political purposes for Donald Trump. It is beyond outrageous and it is one more indication why I’m so afraid about interference in our election – not necessarily coming from foreign interference, but from people inside this administration who will bow down to any Donald Trump wish, whether that be restricting the postal service, whether that be sending troops to the polls, whether it…that’s why I’m so afraid of Bill Pulte having access to intelligence, which he could manipulate into causing some incident. This is something that ought to scare the heck out of all of us. And I’ve been continuing to work with a lot of my Republican friends on this to say if we see more actions on this, we need to stand up as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. And again, this is I feel like Trump’s obsession about the SAVE Act is simply an excuse for him to make the accusation that the elections are rigged. And we’ve seen already from his actions, he has gotten more and more chaotic, more and more the administration is more and more corrupt. And it is obvious from his actions that other than building vanity projects to himself, whether it be the ballroom, whether it be the sloppiness on the reflecting pool with a sweetheart contract to one individual or this proposal or for the arch over the Memorial Bridge, which is outrageous. A billion dollars that’s been reported has gone to these of your money, taxpayer money, has gone to these vanity projects. I don’t think he gives a damn about things like affordability. He’s obsessed about himself and…this is a pattern.  This is something you only need to see the president and some of his lackeys’ own comments about why we all need to be on edge about making sure we’ve got free and fair elections this year.”