MARGARET BRENNAN:
00:03:57
Well, you're taking me to the next topic, which is this effort you led. You got about five Republican senators to join your effort in this procedural vote to restrict the President's actions. He would require new congressional approval before new military action in Venezuela. Do you think the Republicans, who were with you on this vote, will stay with you given that the President has openly threatened them? Margaret. I think they will, and I think more may join. The five Republicans who voted with me, let's be clear what they were voting for. The Trump administration has waged war, first, against Venezuelan boats in international waters, then covert action in Venezuela, and now an attack on Venezuela to depose its leadership, to establish a new government that we chose, not that the Venezuelan people chose, to seize Venezuela's economy, and even say, we're going to set the terms of economic and political transition for the next few years. What my Republican colleagues voted for is, let's get this out of the classified and put it before the American public and actually debate this use of the US military on the floor of the United States Senate. Four months into it, hundreds of Venezuelans dead, American troops injured, let's finally debate this publicly. That's all they voted for. And the fact that the president is going against them just for wanting to have this debate before the public shows how nervous the President is about both his legal authority, but also the wisdom of what he's doing.
MARGARET BRENNAN:
00:05:31
Yeah, he said publicly they should not be reelected because they issued this call for congressional review. You brought up Greenland. This is-- the territory that Denmark has broad governance over, Denmark being a NATO ally, world leaders take President Trump's remarks seriously. We take him seriously and literally. And to that point, Denmark's Prime Minister publicly warned that it would mean the end of the NATO alliance if he carries out what he said, which, as recently as Friday, he said, "I want to make a deal for Greenland the easy way, but if we don't do it the easy way, we are going to do it the hard way." Is there anything to stop the President from doing it, quote unquote, "the hard way," which sounds like military force? Margaret, I think Congress will stop, and both Democrats and Republicans. This would be disastrous. It wouldn't just be America first, it wouldn't just be the end of NATO, it would be America alone. If we take our best allies, and Denmark has been an ally for a very long time, and we decide that we have the military ability to seize territory for them, you will see the United States, instead of being the world's chief diplomat and a leader in the world, you'll see the United States isolated as a pariah. And I've talked to my Republican colleagues. They watch what the president has done in Venezuela, they hear the threats against other nations. I can tell you this. We will force a vote in the Senate about no US military action in Greenland or Denmark. If we need to, we will get overwhelming bipartisan support that this President is foolish to even suggest this. We're not going to do it the hard way and we're not going to do it the easy way either. We're going to continue to work with Denmark as a sovereign nation that we're allied with, and we're not going to treat them as an adversary or as an enemy. We will watch for action in Congress on that front. Senator Kaine, thank you for your time today.
