Kaine Insists There Will Be ‘Republican Support’ for His War Powers Resolution

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said Monday on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” that he will get Republican votes for his war powers resolution requiring congressional authorization for U.S. hostilities against Iran.

Host Rachel Maddow said, “The Founders they made this decision deliberately. They knew it was harder for a group of people to make a decision, a difficult decision about something like war, than it would be for an individual person to make such a decision. And they explain that is explicitly why they vested that power in the Congress. Now, you introduced a similar Iran war powers resolution in 2020, and I note that it got support from seven senators who are Republicans, who are still serving as Republican senators today. Do you expect support from any of those seven or from any other Republican senators this time around?”

Kaine said, “There will be Republican support, Republicans supporting my war powers resolution. The number is still murky to me because the facts are changing every day. We have a security briefing tomorrow, all senators in classified so that we can ask all of our questions. I think that will be an important factor. And again, this backing and forthing, the president launching these bomb strikes on Saturday, the day after the Israeli foreign minister said that their own attacks had set the Iranian program back 2 or 3 years at least. Then retaliation today but the retaliation from Iran was calibrated. Donald Trump in what was one of his most unusual Tweets ever, thanked Iran for giving us a heads up so we could manage to reduce or eliminate the risk of casualties. I mean, this thing is changing every second.”

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