Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both voted on Tuesday to confirm a 2020 election denier, David Perdue, to be the Trump administration ambassador to China.
I’m with you. What the hell?
Perdue, in addition to being an election denier, is, like Trump, a fail-up guy – he was a senator from Georgia before losing his seat in a 2020 runoff to Jon Ossoff, and he also failed in his bid for the Republican Party nomination for governor in Georgia in 2022.
That 2022 run was the one where Perdue tried to play election denial to his advantage.
So, this David Perdue guy is an election denier, a recent two-time loser, given a lifeline by the Trumpers because he’s good at the bootlicking thing, and Tim Kaine and Mark Warner voted to confirm him to represent our country’s interests in China … why?
We don’t have anything from either of them on the why.
Nothing on social media, where both are quite active.
Warner posted a video today with the tagline “Rampant corruption, a shrinking economy, our allies against us. And this is only day 101.”
Kaine posted today a link to an ABC News story on the economy with the message from Kaine reading: “Trump inherited the strongest economy in the world. It took him only 100 days to shrink it.”
Kaine had a conference call with the Virginia and national media Wednesday afternoon, but didn’t bring up the Perdue vote on his own, and none of the media folks asked him about the matter.
Kaine did field a question about the U.S.-China trade war, and agreed with his interlocutor, who prefaced her query to the senator with the observation that Trump “claims that U.S. consumers have been getting ripped off by China’s tariffs for years.”
ICYMI
“He’s not wrong. China’s stealing intellectual property. China is using state subsidies to allow their industries to sell products in the United States that undercut American industries. That’s why I haven’t challenged the president’s tariffs against China,” said Kaine, who is leading an effort in the Senate to get Congress to reassert control over commerce and trade with respect to the dumb Canada tariffs.
“If the president is worried about China, I’m going to link arms with them and say, Let’s do what we can,” Kaine said.
“China is an adversary, but when you put tariffs on allies, what you end up doing is pushing away the very nations that you can be joining with to counter Chinese bad behavior,” Kaine said.
If this is the answer, and it’s what we have – Warner, incidentally, has a media call on Thursday, so maybe the ambassador vote can come up then – sure, link arms, let’s do what we can, that sounds great, but, David Perdue?
It’s time for somebody to say, enough.
The Vichy approach that we’re seeing from Kaine and Warner to the excesses of Trump 2.0 – go along to get along – news flash, guys, it’s not working.
The rhetoric in the videos that Warner shoots in his car on the way to work at the Hart Senate Office Building, the tough talk we get from both, posturing as holding the Trump team’s feet to the fire, isn’t being met with anything in the form of substantive action.
I hate to be this person, but it might be time for our guys from the older generation – Kaine, re-elected just a few months ago, is 67; Warner, whose seat is up for re-election in 2026, is 70 – to ride off into the sunset.
Do it now, and we could get a full primary ahead of special elections in November, with the tail wind of the historic unpopularity of the incumbent president pushing our nominees across the finish line.
Sorry to say this, guys, thanks for what you’ve done for us over the years, but, yes, it’s time.
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Chris Graham
