Members Of The United States Senate

"[T]he president quietly put out an directing the Department of Justice to create a list of "domestic terror organizations." ...[G]roups that are accused of anti-Americanism, , anti-Christianity, or hostility toward those who hold "traditional American views on family, religion or morality. ...{T]hese groups don't have to be violent to get ...on the list. The order suggested that DOJ could look at chat groups, in-person meetings, social media and even s."

"Trump plans to see how far he can stretch the law before someone tells him no, and if the administration won't publicly name s in the , you can bet that they're not going to tell you the name of this new list of domestic terror organizations. Only this time... it will be on American streets, and in American homes."

"This is... fundamentally un-American and strikes at the heart of who we are as a people..."

"Trump has created at least two "s"... to go after Trumps's perceived enemies. As a CIA officer, the idea that s could be asked to target Americans turns my stomach, and it would shift us into a modern day surveillance state."

"The videos out of Chicago are shocking! Federal agents pulling their weapons on highways... injuring and... killing civilians. Many are masked, not wearing uniforms and driving unmarked cars."

"For those of us who served abroad, it feels like another country. ...[W]e're about two weeks away from a bloody incident that spirals out of control, and this is just the kind of incident that Trump wants, to justify more force coming in."

"Trump is following the same playbook as almost every authoritarian in history. ...Once in office, surround yourself with people loyal to you. Accumulate power and influence, and... start using it against your perceived enemies."

"There comes a time in every authoritarian playbook... a tipping point. You accumulate so much power that you realize that if you ever lose... your opponent... can use that very power against you. So you hold on to it with everything you have."

"There is more than one way to destroy an election... to lose our democracy. We're in danger of that..."

"I am not an alarmist. ...April of 2020 ...the first time Trump started tweeting about election fraud ...that if he lose, it could only be because of fraud. ...January 6, 2021, as rioters attacked the capitol I barricaded myself... and looked for something I could use as a weapon. The thing I thought was unthinkable was happening."

"Congress needs to reclaim our power... over the use of force."

"To my Republican colleagues... in the spirit of John McCain we need to start pushing back where we don't agree on how force is being used."

"My issue is just oversight and making sure that I can turn back to Michiganders and say, if you are going to make the decision to invest in crypto, you are safe. You are not going to be scammed. You are not going to be defrauded out of that money. ...This administration has ...systematically dismantled independent commissions: the FTC, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the ...So now we have a new industry, crypto ...and I'm supportive of figuring out good regulation. ...Michigan is the number two online casino and sports betting state, $74 million annually. The tribes and our licensed sports prediction markets are the ones who control that. My understanding is that the CFTC regulations are clear on this issue, that sports contracts should not be allowed because they are equivalent to... gambling. ...President Trump announced that he is launching his own Truth Predict that would ...support event contracts and ...be traded."

"To our state leaders. You have a responsibility to hold the line, protect the integrity of our elections and withstand the pressure that the Trump administration is... starting to apply."

"Childress and Vignesh Senthil — another event co-organizer and Medicine student — said they were both grateful Senator Kaine and his staff were able to participate in this conversation on such short notice. Senthil was additionally grateful for Kaine’s honesty about what he can and cannot accomplish as of now."

"Noting that the Republicans currently hold the majority in the U.S. Senate, one audience member asked if there is anything Kaine can do on a federal level in response to the Department of Justice’s pressure on the University. Kaine said that it is “tough” to take direct, tangible action currently, but that he is working with Sen. Mark Warner to figure out ways, and that he is interested in communicating with members of the Republican Party."

"Sen. Tim Kaine held a conversation with a group of graduate University students and faculty members Friday at the Central Library of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library system. In an informal Q&A session, audience members asked about threats to federal research, the future of diversity, equity and inclusion at the University, potential shifts in the Democratic Party and more. According to Alexia Childress, event co-organizer and School of Medicine student, event co-organizer and Medicine student, the event was organized by several medical students in the wake of former University President Jim Ryan’s resignation. Many of those in attendance on Friday were from the School of Medicine, but there were faculty and staff from various other University departments and schools as well."

"Kaine also spoke to more localized strategies that could be used by University constituents facing pushback against DEI and research cuts. For example, one faculty member said that a course he teaches in the School of Medicine was recently under review for DEI compliance and several slides focused on health disparities were pulled. He asked Kaine for advice on what health professionals should do in these circumstances. Kaine said that — though it is not what he personally believes in — sometimes the terminology has to be changed. “I hate to give you this advice,” Kaine said. “But, if you have to change the terminology, because these guys have five buzz words they don't like, as long as you can serve the same people, change the terminology.”"

"America deserves a leader focused on solving problems, not someone who treats chaos and disruption as tools of governing. Instead of threatening government employees and the American public with even more mass layoffs and federal dysfunction, President Trump should come to the table and negotiate a funding bill that prevents health care premiums from skyrocketing for families and keeps the government operational. If President Trump truly cares about the American people, he will work with Congress to avoid a shutdown of his own making."

"Together, let us find answers through a dialogue that is shaped not simply in terms of dollars and cents, but also by new solutions and common sense. A lack of coordination and planning has us stuck where we are today. Let it not be fear and politics that leaves us stranded here."

"Virginians did not vote for this. Senator Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and their sidekick, Abigail Spanberger, supported a government shutdown. They chose politics over people and left families wondering how they’ll pay their bills. At a time when Virginians need leadership, they chose to play games."

"Second, we acknowledge that individual opportunity is the most powerful engine of progress. The first English settlers came as part of a commercial venture, the Virginia Company, seeking economic riches in the New World. Others came seeking the opportunity to worship as they pleased or to trade away an aristocracy of birth for an aristocracy of merit. When individuals have the opportunity to set their own purpose, and determine the bar for their own achievements, they are able to harness their God-given talents and ensure our economic and social success."

"I am humbled by the trust you have placed in me. With the support of God and my family, I pledge my energy and enthusiasm to the mission of serving this Commonwealth."

"Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere."

"Our challenges today are different than those faced by the Jamestown settlers, or the first Virginia governors. But they require fidelity to the same values. We may not have new geographic worlds to discover, but there are still worlds of research and knowledge, of information and creativity, of commerce and service, of reconciliation and brotherhood, that await our exploration."

"That same sense of community is required of us today. We must include all Virginians in our efforts. We should continue to welcome newcomers to this Commonwealth and nation, just as Chief Powhatan did 400 years ago."

"I seek the help of all Virginians – regardless of party or region, race or religion – in keeping the promise of Virginia. Let us rise to the leadership example of Virginia’s first four hundred years. Let us affirm and carry forward our values of courage, opportunity and community. Let us remember that civility is not a sign of weakness – that cooperation and compromise are necessary for progress and for the sensible solutions we can all embrace to keep the promise of Virginia strong. Under God’s hand, we have thrived. If we stay faithful to our history, we will succeed. Let us work together. Let us begin."

"To those who serve in local governments: I pledge an administration that is a good partner with a focus on cooperation and collaboration. The people we serve are the same people you serve. When we work together, we serve them better."

"First, we reaffirm the necessity of courage. This is the defining trait of those who came to Virginia aboard the Discovery, Godspeed and Susan Constant, landing just a few miles from this place at Jamestown Island in 1607. They knew that earlier efforts, by the Spanish and English, to establish settlements in this region had ended in disaster. But they crossed treacherous seas to arrive at a new world because they understood the need to do and to dare. Their survival and success depended upon bold leadership. We must be equally bold to tackle the challenges of our day."

"And third, we recognize that our destiny is a shared destiny and that our commitment to community is a condition of our advancement. Our Virginia might not exist today were it not for the generosity extended to those first settlers by the native Virginia tribes living in this region. Without the hospitality of Chief Powhatan or the compassion of Pocahontas, those in Jamestown would have perished. Throughout Virginia’s history, we have succeeded only when we have welcomed all to the table of Thanksgiving."

"Patrick Henry was sworn in here as the newly-formed Commonwealth’s first Governor in 1776 and, three years later, Thomas Jefferson followed in his footsteps. Henry and Jefferson stood here in the midst of a war raging on our country’s soil, a war that threatened the very existence of Virginia and our young nation. They stood here at a time, just as today, when Virginians serving freedom’s cause sacrificed their lives so that democracy could prevail over tyranny. They stood here proclaiming the Promise of Virginia, when the world around them doubted that the land of their vision would survive. Could Henry or Jefferson have imagined the powerful success of their democratic experiment, their beloved Virginia, as it appears today? As a people, we have come through storm after storm, working out the meaning of our own destiny and coming closer and closer to the Virginia ideal of equality that Jefferson articulated in America’s Declaration of Independence. As we stand here now, our hearts should be filled with the magnitude of the debt we owe to the generations of leaders – the celebrated and the unknown – who fought and worked to create our Commonwealth. The Promise of Virginia is bright today because of their efforts, and it is up to us to carry the work forward for future generations."

"Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant."

"I’m going to fucking beat your ass."

"Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you. I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face."

"The left has a lot of single issue voters. Sadly, by the way, there's a lot of suburban women that are like, 'Listen, abortion's it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.' ... It's a little crazy by the way − especially for women that are past 50, I'm thinking to myself, 'I don’t think that’s an issue for you.'"

"You don’t get pregnant because you were at the checkout line at Kroger. It doesn’t happen that way. That’s at least what my mom and dad told me. So, you do have to take personal responsibility. Abortion is a heinous crime. It is certainly not health care. It is certainly not birth control. But yet here we are doing it."

"Today starts a new wave. We talked about wanting a red wave. I think what we have tonight is a red, white and blue wave in this country. ... We're tired of being treated like second class citizens in our own country, we're tired of leaders that think we're garbage, and we're tired of being treated like garbage. ... With President Trump and JD Vance in the white house we are going to advance an agenda that is an American agenda, an agenda that says we are pro immigration but not pro invasion."

"Dual citizenship has always been an impressive status symbol, but a new bill aims to change that, hoping to eliminate the possibility of holding passports from more than one country. The Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, introduced by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) on Dec. 1, seeks to establish “citizens of the United States... owe sole and exclusive allegiance to the United States.” If passed, the bill would force U.S. citizens with dual foreign citizenship to choose between the two. Under the bill, U.S. citizens who also possess a foreign citizenship would be required to submit a written renunciation of one of those nationalities within one year. U.S. citizens who acquire another citizenship in the future would also "be deemed to have relinquished United States citizenship." The bill is currently in the early stages of the legislative process and has been moved to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Congress. GovTrack.us, which tracks the status of congressional bills, estimated the citizenship bill has a 7 percent chance of getting past committee and a 3 percent chance of being enacted."

"Could you imagine if we could go back into the DeLorean, ... and you went back and met Madison and Hamilton and Washington and said, 'Hey, are you in favor of abortion?' They would murder you. ... And hey, by the way, 250 years later we're saying that the Constitution provides you the right for an abortion. They'd be like, 'Madness. We’re going back to England.'"

"Moreno, who was born in Bogota, Colombia, and moved to the U.S. at 5 years old, said in a statement last month allowing U.S. citizens to maintain foreign citizenship would create a conflict of interest. “One of the greatest honors of my life was when I became an American citizen at 18, the first opportunity I could do so,” Moreno said. “It was an honor to pledge an Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America and ONLY to the United States of America! Being an American citizen is an honor and a privilege—and if you want to be an American, it’s all or nothing." Currently, the law allows U.S. citizens to hold multiple foreign citizenships in addition to their U.S. citizenship, according to the Department of State. Several countries offer citizenship by investment or citizenship by descent, allowing people to apply for a second passport if a grandparent or even great-grandparent held citizenship. And some countries are easier to become citizens of than others: Portugal and Italy, for example, are notably easier than some other nations. However, the State Department said U.S. travelers who hold two passports must enter and leave the U.S. with their U.S. passport. The department also noted some countries may not permit dual nationality and may not recognize a traveler's U.S. nationality when they are abroad."

"Democracy is the creed of a province; Republicanism the religion of a nation. Democracy grovels in fetid wards; Republicanism creates imperial commonwealths out of desert wastes."

"Look at the mighty Mississippi the Father of Waters—it rises in the nameless snows of North America—runs through twenty-three degrees of latitude, all our own soil, and washes the sides of ten young, flourishing, and powerful States; its tributaries drain the rains that fall in sight of the Atlantic and meet the streams that flow into the Pacific upon the summit of the Rocky Mountains—its broad tides bear on their buoyant bosom the clothing of half of the world, and the fertile valleys, which spread out from its ample banks are capable of producing food for the population of the whole earth for a thousand years to come."

"No words can depict, no pen can describe, the wonderful variety, richness, grandeur and beauty which the Almighty has stamped upon this, our favored land. Every material for human industry, every facility for honorable employment, can be here found. The fisherman, the sailor, the farmer, the miner, the mechanic of very kind, the artist, the merchant, and even the preacher, the doctor, and the lawyer, may here find means of pursuing his vocation. In what part of the habitable globe can any man utter with greater truth the words of the psalmist: "O Lord, how great are thy works"?"

"Today we are much closer to a general acknowledgment that government must encourage business to expand and grow. Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey and others have, I believe, changed the debate of our party. We intuitively know that to create job opportunities we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities."

"I read War and Peace from cover to cover last summer, and what I found remarkable was how Tolstoy was able to bring his own philosophy of life into the story without distracting you from it. His big theme was that history was not the sum of actions of 'great men.' It was the sum of actions by lots of individuals. It is true that your actions get hemmed in by contingency but there is no great 'master plan' up there. There is no inevitability. You choose. The moment comes. You choose."

"Since the Vietnamese continued to resist the US-imposed dictatorship in South Vietnam, the United States invaded Vietnam in the early 1960s, beginning a devastating campaign of bombings, atrocities, chemical warfare, and torture, leading to the deaths of 3.8 million people, according to a study published in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal). According to Nick Turse in Kill Anything That Moves: [T]he stunning scale of civilian suffering in Vietnam is far beyond anything that can be explained as merely the work of some “bad apples,” however numerous. Murder, torture, rape, abuse, forced displacement, home burnings, specious arrests, imprisonment without due process—such occurrences were virtually a daily fact of life throughout the years of the American presence in Vietnam. … [T]hey were no aberration. Rather, they were the inevitable outcome of deliberate policies, dictated at the highest levels of the military. Turse’s investigations of US war crimes (spurred by his discovery of the Pentagon’s Vietnam War Crimes Working Group) lend credence to the various displays and photographs one will find in the museum. One example is a sewer pipe present at the Thanh Phong massacre, used by three children to hide in before being killed by future Senator Bob Kerrey and his cohorts (ten other civilians also died)."

"I don't think we prepare young people very well to make the tough decisions. The thing we do with children- and it was done when I was raised- is we remove them from the adults when the adults are making decisions, and so we don't show them that adults make bad decisions. And that's what you have to figure out in life. You have to figure out how to make good decisions. You're going to make good ones, and you're going to make bad ones, and they get tough. The toughest ones are the ones that come very quick and that are connected to ethics."

"I think for the most part they're ordinary guys who did an extraordinary thing and most of us recognize that, you know, there but for the grace of God goes somebody else. And most of them feel that they received it for others and that their own actions were not especially heroic."

"When I was, say, fifteen years old in 1958, I could have gone and talked to a veteran of World War I or World War II and said, 'Tell me your story.' They could have taught us with these men who had experience in war, instead of giving us a dry history book. I think that to understand history, to be excited by history, a human being needs something. You need the capacity to feel sympathy for the people you're reading about in the story."

"You are among the two or three most talented people I have ever met in politics."