Sen. Kaine on Iran War: “Have we learned nothing?”

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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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