A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Let's turn now to one of the sponsors of that latest failed War Powers Resolution. That's Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. Senator, your Republican colleagues have now rejected four separate War Powers Resolutions that would restrict the president's actions against Iran. So what options are left now?
TIM KAINE: Well, there are two. We're going to force a war powers vote every week until this war is over, and we're either going to end it or we're going to make sure everyone in America knows who is responsible for it. And the second option is that we're now writing the defense bill and dealing with appropriations, including an administration request to dramatically increase the defense budget for the Iran war. Those appropriations bills take 60 votes. And so we are not going to just write a blank check for another endless war. The president has been saying mission accomplished over and over again. But as long as my Virginians are deployed in a theater of war and as long as Americans are paying a buck more per gallon for gas, they're - this mission has not been accomplished.
MARTÍNEZ: You said, Senator, that you're going to force a vote until the war is over. If the war ends this week, would you still want something like this in place?
KAINE: Well, if the war ends this week, and it's not just the president saying it's over with our troops still deployed and in harm's way, then we have to decide whether more War Powers Resolutions are necessary. But we would still have this option on the appropriations bills. We're hearing that the - we know that the White House has sent over a request to increase the defense budget from $800 billion to about $1.5 trillion per year, and we're hearing that they're going to send over a supplemental request for even more money for the Iran war. That's going to get a very, very intense and robust reception when it comes to the Hill.
MARTÍNEZ: And some of that intense and robust reception would come from you?
KAINE: Yes. Absolutely. This is, in my view, an illegal war because the president started it without coming to Congress. And it's also a very unwise war because there was no clear rationale, no clear plan, no effort to engage allies, no effort to include Congress. And hence, when you do that, the war is deeply, deeply unpopular with the American public, including with Virginians. I live in a very pro-military state, but it's a state where a lot of people are deployed right now. The Ford carrier just passed the longest deployment in the history of the United States. The sailors were supposed to be home by Christmas. And here it is, mid-April, and they're being steamed here, there and everywhere at the whim of a president who is acting without any really good, solid plan.
MARTÍNEZ: You mentioned you consider the war illegal and that it's unpopular. How do you explain the continued support for the war among a majority of your Senate colleagues?
KAINE: Well, I talked to a lot of my Republican colleagues, and they need to speak for themselves. We do get one Republican who votes with us and has voted with us - Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky - on the legality question. And a number of other Republicans have said when we hit 60 days of the war, which will happen at the end of March, they expect the president to either terminate the war or get congressional approval under the War Powers Resolution. I don't think that act gives presidents just the ability to do whatever they want for 60 days. I think Congress has a role beginning on Day 1, according to the Constitution, but a number of my colleagues seem to have decided that they're going to give the president deference until the end of April. And then they're going to start exercising more oversight, in the way that Congress should.
MARTÍNEZ: What do you think is going to happen next in this war? I mean, what do you see as a possible way to end it?
KAINE: Well, it's got to end at the - at a negotiating table. And, you know, the tragedy of this war is before the war started, the Straits of Hormuz was open. Before the war started, gas was at a normal price, not an escalated price. And so Donald Trump's war is what's led to the straits being closed and gas prices going up.
And then maybe the biggest tragedy of all, A, is this. The president says he wants to get Iran to agree not to have a nuclear weapon. Iran did agree to that. After a 20-month negotiation in 2016, they signed an agreement with the United States and other allies and China and Russia that said they would never seek to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. That was on the first page of the agreement, and Donald Trump, who never understood the agreement, tore it up. And now we have American troops dying because Donald Trump tore up a diplomatic deal. When you make diplomacy impossible, you make war inevitable.
MARTÍNEZ: One more thing, Senator, really quick. Your Senate colleague Bernie Sanders has been pressing to block weapon sales to Israel. More and more senators seem to be on board on this. What do you make of that?
KAINE: Well, there's a distinction between defensive weapons and offensive. We want Israeli civilians to be defended, and so we are all supporting transferring defensive weapons. But the offensive weapons that are killing civilians in Gaza and Lebanon - we've grown from 17 opposing those weapons to 40 over the course of the last year and a half, and I think the momentum will continue to grow.
MARTÍNEZ: Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, thank you very much.
KAINE: Absolutely. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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