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Sam Stein talks with Senator Tim Kaine as he forces a Senate vote to block Trump from waging war with Iran without congressional approval. Kaine says lawmakers are ducking their constitutional duty and warns the administration’s rationale echoes the run-up to Iraq. If senators want this war, he argues, they should have the guts to put their names on it.
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Everybody to me Sam style managing editor at the book and I am joined by Senator Tim Cain the great Commonwealth of Virginia
I got that right this time
We're here to talk about what's happening in Iran and the effort to pass a war power resolution
Senator thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it
You and I've had this conversation a couple times throughout your time in public office because you're a champion of
actual congressional input into acts of war
Yes, it appears yet again that Congress is going to skirt the idea of voting on
What is clearly an active war by Pete Hexas own a mission?
Why should we feel any different or any more confident that the or powers resolution would pass this go around
And how do you keep bang in this drum knowing that it's likely to have been met by defeat?
Sam so a couple of things when I became senator in 2013
I came out of an experience where I'd been governor and
Head watch thousands of my national guard troops deploy into Iraq and Afghanistan and I went to
Deployments and I went to homecomings and I went to wakes and funerals and I just vowed when I became a senator that I would do everything
I can to make sure we didn't go into war except for a really good reason after a congressional debate and vote and that we should do
Everything possible to avoid student wars and
My my advocacy around this I may or may not be successful. I haven't yet been successful in this
I've been at it for 13 years whether it's a Democrat or Republican president
I hold them to the constitutional standard. I feel like I'm duty bound to do it by my oath
But also by my connection to our troops as you know Virginia very military heavy state very pro-military. I got a kid in the
In the armed services, and so I just believe there shouldn't be an easy past lane or a shortcut on
Go to war in this particular case
We have a war powers resolution as you point out. It's a privileged motion that the statute gives us to challenge a president
Who has taken the nation into hostilities without a congressional authorization in that circumstance?
A president has initiated hostilities without Congress. You can force a vote on the floor of the Senate
That's what I'm doing together with my Republican colleague
Rand Paul that vote will be tomorrow, and it's a simple page long resolution no war against Iran without a vote of Congress
I will get virtually every Democrat
Republicans, you know kind of have to look in the mirror and listen to their constituents and decide whether they think
More war in the Middle East is a good idea. I think it's a horrible idea
But even if you think it's a good idea, you shouldn't want a president to do it unilaterally
Without a without a rationale and without a plan, which is President Trump is now proceeding
So the conventional wisdom
Is that members don't like voting on these things because they don't want to be on the record having supported a
Overseas military engagement that could go terribly wrong
Is that your assessment of your fellow colleagues?
Yes, Sam and actually that con Congressional lack of backbone
Goes back to Wiggs and Federalists. It's not just
2026
Even though the Constitution is super clear on this and both the Federalists papers and the constitutional convention minutes
Make very plain that as much as they love George Washington
They didn't they didn't even trust George Washington to make a decision about war on his own because it's too consequential
Members of Congress realized pretty early in our nation's history the war votes are tough
Did even under the best of circumstances people might die and under lesser circumstances you can really get into a jam
And so members of Congress would in many instances prefer to hide under their desk
Let a president do it blame him if it goes wrong if it goes right say hey, we are with y'all along
But as I as I said
Not only because it's in the Constitution, but there is a value judgment
Expressed in that provision it says if we're going to send our sons and daughters into war where they face
Death or injury we should only do it if we have the guts they have the debate in front of the American public and say
This is a mission. It's worth it. And if we won't do that work
Let me just jump in I'm kind of curious because in a way
This so we we had this a version of this debate a couple weeks ago a month ago
And in a way correct me if I'm wrong there appeared to be more appetite on the Republican side
for
Putting this to a vote then there is now
And now we don't know the final outcome of tomorrow's vote obviously
But you know, we have people like Josh Holly who have come out very quickly and said
Not going to vote in favor of this. They believe that President Trump has the authority to do what he wants
Whereas Holly was more hemming and hawing
Prior to the Venezuelvo
What why do you what do you account for here to to make to understand the different?
circumstances that's a hard one when I the first time I brought up a war power's resolution in Trump term 2
I only got one Republican vote on the Venezuelan vote a month or so ago. I got five
votes, but then Donald Trump really whipped hard. He canceled the second invasion in Venezuela
He agreed to finally have a public hearing and send his secretary stayed up to brief Congress and public not classified
And then two of the five switch to nose. I ended up with three votes
This one seems like it's harder and that may be
Because people
Think Iran is a bad actor and look nobody's warning that the Ayatollah is gone, but just to remind people
You know
We said Iraq was a bad actor and it was we were liberators and mission accomplished after a couple weeks
And then it turned into a decade. I mean we lost 14,000
troops and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan more than 66,000
injured
Hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths eight trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money
These wars in the Middle East you might think they're going to be
Smooth sailing or that you're up against a a bad actor, but they can produce a power vacuum
Well, that's all the more reasons why they don't want to vote for it, right?
I don't want to be on record
And that's all the more and that's all the more reason than they should and so
While they may vote against my
Resolution they will all have been forced to vote
I learned early if if you let people off the hook by well, I'm concerned or I want a briefing or I wouldn't it
I would have done it differently
That's just too easy and too cheap
Make people go on the record and then they're going to be held accountable by their voters from whether they were four war
Or against it at this moment in time
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Well, let's talk a bit about briefings
Because there's been a few
I think of what's happened in Iran up on the hill
We saw Hegseth and Rubio, among others, up there
To the extent that you're able to reveal it
What have you been told about the rationale for going in there?
I know there's been about three or four, maybe five different ones
But what is the, if you had to sort of say, this is where the administration
Is in terms of the rationale for what they have done
And this is where the administration is in terms of how long it's going to take
And what they're hoping to produce
Can you, can you do that?
I can't
I can, Sam, so I haven't been to a briefing yet
I will go to one this afternoon
Everything I'm going to tell you right now
It's not based on what I heard in a skip
It was based on news accounts
The news accounts of the Rubio briefing of the gang of A
Sort of the key leadership
Chair and ranking on the key
Appropriations and national security committee said
They were asked the question, well why now?
What was imminent about now?
And the Rubio answer was deeply troubling
Well, Israel was going to attack
And if Israel attacked, we would face some retaliation
So we decided to go ahead and go in
We should not let any nation, even an ally
Drag us into war or determine the timing that the US goes to war
So the fact that Israel is going to attack
Anyway, that's no reason for us to send our own kids
Into face risk of death and injury
Sadly, we've already seen six service members
Killed we shouldn't do this because well, Israel is going to attack anyway that
That's about the worst rationale
For war that I've ever heard come out of anybody's mouth
This was public reporting from that
Briefing I didn't attend
So is it accurate or not? I don't know
But if that was said that would that should cause
All right, let's play a game here then
Because you will get a briefing you'll get a chance to ask
I presume some members of the administration
Some questions about what is going on here
What's the one if you only got a chance to do one question
What would it be?
Sam here's the way they do it
They jam the presentations
They give you an hour they do presentations
For 45 minutes and with 100 senators in the room
All right, well, let's say you got asked
But here, but you know, the legal rationale
What was what was imminent
What are your targeting criteria?
The news is out that we we struck a school in 170
Possibly little school children were killed
The US is usually really good at targeting
And avoiding hitting women and children
We've been very precise in the boat strikes
In the Pacific and Caribbean on that
Even though I don't think those are legally authorized
I do acknowledge there's been an effort
Thus far successful to minimize killing women and children
So how strike a school killing kids
If we changed our targeting criteria
Or is it a mistake?
Why did Kuwait shoot down three US F-15s?
They're a friendly nation
Normally they're not shooting down American aircraft
It was a mistake that suggests some lack of
Planning or preparation when that happened
So the rationale
The planning and preparation
And then especially what's going to happen next
Or do you even care?
You assassinate the leader of a country
Do you care who comes next?
Do you have a favorite?
What's your prediction?
Or if it's just the regime back in power
Like Delsey Rodriguez is back in power in Venezuela
And the regime continues to oppress
Iranian citizens every day
Are you going to claim that this was a good outcome
So I think you're going to see a lot of questions about what comes
I know we're kind of pressed on time
I have two more questions here
One is you have constituents in Virginia
That I presume at least some of them
Are living abroad in the Middle East
Yes
There was an alert that went out yesterday
From the State Department
Encouraging every American
In 14 Middle Eastern countries to get out
It was rather abrupt
And then this morning the US Embassy in Jerusalem said
We cannot help you get out
We don't have the capacity to do that
Are you getting incoming from your constituents
Who are in the Middle East about how to get out
What are the interactions you're having with them
How are you trying to assist in their departure from the region?
It's chaotic Sam
And I can't speak for my entire team
I have a constituent service team that's taking a lot of incoming
And I'm so focused on this vote tomorrow
That I haven't checked in with them
But I have had two interactions
Just myself
One is somebody in Saudi Arabia
Who's a friend who was trying to board a flight to Washington
Could he get out
And he reached out to me and said
What do I need to do before I could even figure it out
He was on a plane to DC
Thank goodness
And then my hometown university
Virginia Commonwealth University has a campus
In Doha
Shun
And they switched all their classes to online
Because they're so worried about
Iranians sort of, you know, broadening the net
In terms of retaliatory attacks
And we've seen that happen
So these things come home
The sailors on the USS Ford
The carrier strike group
Heavily from Virginia
And this is a carrier that's been out
Supposed to be out for seven months
I think we're passing nine or ten months
It's on its way
To maybe an 11-month deployment
With some major issues on board
That need to be solved
And our sailors haven't seen their families
In months
And I am getting questions from family members
What's the goal?
What's the plan?
When will I see my kid?
When will I see my younger wife?
All right, last question
You're old but you're not that old
Sorry, don't want to be insulting
You were not
68
Well, you were not
And you were not in Congress
In 2002-2003
Let's just put it that way
Right
That was a different time for Democrats obviously
And I think you alluded to it
Where there's this perception
That the Iraq war would go
Swimmingly well
Or that you had to be patriotic and support it
And so a lot of
Luminaries in the party leading figures did vote for it
In fact, it ended up being the big
Yes, pointed distinction between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
A couple of years later
Yeah, I don't sense
There is that
The motive thinking right now among Democrats
And I'm kind of curious if you can give us a sense
Of what the vibe is like
For lack of a bad word inside the party
Yeah, Sam, I think the vibe is
Have we learned nothing from 25 years
I mean, I think that is the vibe
And when I came into the Senate in 2013
One of the reasons I so embrace this
We got to get it right on war
Is watching the mistaken vote on O2
Remember President Bush brought the vote to Congress
Right before the midterm in October
Even though the attack didn't happen to March
Wait, why bring the vote in October
It was designed to affect the midterms
I watched it at the time with no intelligence
That I had access to
I was lieutenant governor
But I thought man, there's got to be a better way to make a decision about
Going to war than to force a vote right before a midterm election
So I came into Congress very much shaped by
Iraq and Afghan decisions
And that has made me extremely passionate about
No easy pass lane, no shortcut
You got to get it right
And let Congress
Sign their name to it before we order people to risk their
All right, Senator Kim
We've been doing this on and off for many years now
I always appreciate when you come and join us
Talk about this stuff
And thank you for doing this
And thank you for everyone who watched
As always do sign up for the poll
Where you get great conversations just like this
Talk to you soon
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