Trump’s Visit to China, Iran Latest: Kaine Weighs In

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Also joining us this hour is my congressional source who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. And thank you, Senator, for being here because when the White House delayed this meeting, they thought that the war would be over by the time it was rescheduled. Obviously, we're still in the middle of it. What do you make of the different dynamics that we're about to see play out in Beijing tonight?

[00:00:24]Well, the President Trump may have thought the war would be quick, but anybody who's paid any attention to the history of United States wars in the Middle East would have told him, "You're in a fantasy land." You know, that they they sort of believed a fake narrative that they could start a war and end it in a few days.

[00:00:48]And what about the last 25 years in the Middle East would have made you believe that? Um and so that's the challenge the president has is he's going into a situation where he had a pie-in-the-sky view of what his unwise and illegal war would produce. And he's been proven dramatically wrong. And that puts him in a weak position. Um I think the the bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill is will the president um try to win a short-term economic deal with China uh at the expense of giving away long-term national security objectives for the United States and our allies.

[00:01:36]Given I mean, I hear that concern.

[00:01:39]Given the way though that this war is impacting Americans, do you welcome Chinese efforts to help bring the war to an end?

[00:01:47]Anything that brings this war to an end would be a positive. The ceasefire we're in should be extended. Uh the president has said he might start, you know, bombing again tomorrow. Uh, Republicans, even those who have supported the war, are telling him, "Don't do this." We had a war powers resolution vote today and, you know, we had one Republican with us to say no war against Iran without a vote of Congress, then two, then three today. Uh, my Republican colleagues are hearing in their phone calls from their constituents, "This is a stupid war. We don't want to see inflation ratchet up.

[00:02:27]We don't want to see gas prices a dollar 40, a dollar 50, and climbing higher than they were on February 27th. So, this is going to get worse and worse for the president and Congress as my colleagues listen to their constituents.

[00:02:43]And so, anything to extend the ceasefire or end the war is smart cuz the war is illegal and the war is stupid.

[00:02:51]Do you You mentioned those three Republicans. Is there anyone else on the GOP side that you think would would join you in your effort?

[00:03:00]I I never predict what anyone else will do. I'll I'm I can tell you my vote, but uh, others are going to have to decide, but we're going to bring this vote to end the war up every week until we succeed. And as you saw today, it was a 50-49 vote. We've got three Republicans now voting with us. There shouldn't be a war without a congressional authorization. I think the day that the Senate will vote to end this war, and it will be a historic vote when we vote to do it, is soon. I'll do everything I can to hasten it cuz I represent a very military state, and my state says this war is illegal and unwise. Well, I mean, obviously we'll see if that happens. Uh, I don't know if you heard in the introduction, but we There was a a moment today during a press conference that the vice president was doing where he was asked about the president's comment yesterday that he doesn't think about Americans' financial situation when he's making decisions about the Iran war. Vance said it was taken out of context. What did you make of the vice president's comment there?

[00:04:05]Well, I think President Trump when he said he doesn't worry about Americans' financial situation, that's a self-obvious proposition.

[00:04:13]Uh everything the president is doing on the economy is is hurting us and inflation, gas prices, etc. And okay, the vice president says, well, it was taken out of context. He's trying to cover his own backside uh cuz he's thinking about his next gig. Um this president is patting his own pocket.

[00:04:34]There was news yesterday that he may be trying to settle a lawsuit that he's filed against the IRS where the United States government would pay him billions of dollars. This is a president who thinks about his own wallet, who thinks about his own friends.

[00:04:52]He doesn't care about everyday folks and the gas prices they're paying, the food costs or housing costs. And J.D.

[00:04:59]Vance is sweating that uh very, very significantly now.

[00:05:03]As we're looking ahead to the midterm elections, we heard from Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader today, who said Democrats he thought did the right thing in your state to redraw the congressional map. Obviously, the Virginia Supreme Court struck it down.

[00:05:16]They said because of procedural errors that the Democratic-led legislature made and how they placed that question on the ballot.

[00:05:23]Do you think Democrats messed that up in your home state?

[00:05:28]You know, look, the Virginia Supreme Court said they threw out the votes of 3 million Virginians.

[00:05:35]Um it's it's interesting to see that in in essentially the same week where the US Supreme Court took a case up that was filed by a January 6th extremist and gutted the Voting Rights Act.

[00:05:50]And Southern states are now racing to do backroom deals to disenfranchise minority voters and candidates. The Virginia Supreme Court threw out the votes of 3 million people. But my advice to Virginians is let's just do what we did last November. Last November in Virginia, we ran on the maps that they had drawn, not our maps, and we won every statewide office and we won multiple General Assembly seats. Let's do the same thing this November. If they're going to throw 3 million votes in the trash can, then we're going to go out with great candidates and win races. That's the way you strike back.

[00:06:32]Senator Tim Kaine, thank you for joining us here tonight on The Source.

[00:06:37]Absolutely.

[00:06:38]Up next, there's been a