EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Tim Kaine talks to Weekly Ringer reporters about the Trump administration days before upcoming midterms

by MEAGHAN VAN DYKE & GRACE WAGNER

News Editor and Editor in Chief

With Virginia’s early voting period nearing its end, Sen. Tim Kaine, D- Va., is making an appeal to young voters: Don’t let concerns about election integrity keep you from casting a ballot.

The senator spoke to Weekly Ringer reporters following an appearance in professor Ranjit Singh’s Introduction to Political Science class on Friday.

In a recent appearance on the “All In” podcast, Vice President JD Vance urged voters to “give the administration another chance” in the upcoming midterms. 

Kaine interpreted Vance’s recent appeal to voters as an acknowledgement that the administration failed to deliver on its campaign promises.

“When [he says], ‘Give us another chance,’ he’s acknowledging that we promised no forever wars, but we lied and we’ve gotten into one, and we promised that we’d bring costs down, but we lied and costs are up,” Kaine said. 

Kaine questioned whether the administration alone could fix the “damage” he believes Trump created in his second term.

“There’s no ‘I’ in the world who alone can really fix anything, but a person by themselves can do tremendous damage, and that’s what’s happened in the first two years of his term,” he said. “That’s why the vice president sort of tacitly admits that when he says, ‘You gotta get us another chance.’” 

The senator also said that Trump’s recent comments at the Sept. 10 Republican midterm convention for attendees to “cheat like hell” was part of an attempt to lower voter confidence and turnout.

“That’s a little cunning by the president. If he raises a lot of worries about the election, maybe some people will just choose not to vote,” Kaine said.

Kaine believes this achieved the opposite. 

“It’s like, ‘You’re gonna try to take this away from me? Then I’m gonna get my vote in the bank right now.’”

He warned voters that not voting in the election at all would be more harmful to the nation’s future security than 

“Robust, vigorous turnout is always the best guarantee that the right answers prevail,” he said.

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, over 1.4 million Virginians have cast ballots as of Oct. 29. A total of 2.4 million early voting ballots were cast in the 45-day Early Voting period before the 2024 general election. 

Early voting ends Oct. 31.

According to an Oct. 29 Gallup poll, 47% of voters say the war in Iran is “extremely important” to them in this midterm election, with an additional 30% placing it as “very important.” 

Kaine, an advocate against US involvement in Iran since its beginning, condemned the actions in Iran as unconstitutional. The senator sponsored an April resolution that declared the war illegal within the definitions of the War Resolutions Power, and urged the president to cease all military action in Iran. Since then, Kaine says he wants to revise the War Powers Resolution so that all appropriations for war are taken away after the 60-day action period. 

The Virginia senator also said that he wants to use the budget as a bargaining chip in getting Trump to cease all military action in Iran.

“I would like to play some hardball with the president and say, ‘You want an increase? You have a need to restore all the munitions that you’ve blown off in Iran or do other things. Okay, we’ll give you an increase. Maybe not every dollar you ask for, but as a condition, we’re going to put in here no more funding for military military operations against the nation of Iran,” Kaine said.

Kaine told Weekly Ringer reporters that he would not recommend articles of impeachment for the president’s action in Iran at this time, citing low support in Congress.

“The question is, if we have time to use, do we use it on an impeachment, you know, vote in process and then a trial in the Senate, or do we use it to bring people’s costs down?” Kaine said. 

Kaine still urges oversight committees to hold the president accountable.

“If they have subpoena power, I think they ought to be extremely vigorous in using those powers to expose corruption,” he added.

Kaine said Democrats must demonstrate that they are listening to young Americans through their actions, particularly on issues such as the war in Iran, education and affordability. 

“By standing against the war, we’re on the side of young voters,” he said. “If we can act very quickly to try to use our tools to stop the war, I think that will show young voters we’re listening to them. If we act aggressively on affordability issues, education, health care, energy, you know, basic necessities of life, I think that will suggest to young voters we’re listening to them.”

Kaine said that if the blue wave predicted by many experts comes to pass, Democrats must include young voices in future decision-making processes.

“If instead, we try to rebuild institutions in ways that are right for the 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond, we would need a lot of young leaders around the table with us to try to build a system that they think is the right one for the future, not what we think is the right one for right now,” Kaine said.