Transcript: Sen. Tim Kaine on "Face the Nation"

The following is the transcript of an interview with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 22, 2025.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to the Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who joins us from Richmond, Virginia. Good morning to you, Senator.

SENATOR TIM KAINE: Good morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you sit on the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee, but what we just heard from the Pentagon was that Congress was notified after the strike on Iran was concluded, after the US jets are back- in safety. Is this sufficient?

SEN. KAINE: Margaret, no. Congress needs to authorize a war against Iran. This Trump war against Iran, we have not. Congress should be consulted with it. We were not. And, Congress needs to be notified, not after the fact, but in advance. We were not. That's why I filed a War Powers Resolution that will ripen and be brought to a vote on the floor of the Senate this week. Senator Schumer is working with Leader Thune to make that happen. The United States should not be in an offensive war against Iran without a vote of Congress. The Constitution is completely clear on it. And I am so disappointed that the President has acted so prematurely. The Foreign Minister of Israel said Friday night that its own bombing campaign had set the Iranian nuclear program back, "at least two or three years." There was no urgency that suggested, while diplomatic talks were underway, that the US should take this unilateral action by President Trump's orders yesterday.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the Vice President was on another network earlier this morning, and said, "We are not at war with Iran. We are at war with Iran's nuclear program." There seems to be a lot of legal parsing on the definition of the word war here. What do you make of that description?

SEN. KAINE: I think it's, it's BS, and I think anybody hearing it would conclude the same thing. When- when you're bombing another nation, ask them if they think it's war. They do, would we think it was war if Iran bombed a US nuclear facility? Of course we would. And the US, you know, we've invaded two neighbors of Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, to topple their regimes since 2000. Those were wars. This is the US jumping into a war of choice at Donald Trump's urging, without any compelling national security interests for the United States to act in this way, particularly without a debate and vote in Congress. We should not be sending troops, and risking troops' lives in an offensive war without a debate in Congress.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, just on the facts, though, the President has not authorized ground forces. In fact, he said he really doesn't want to send in ground forces. When it came to what was just described to the public by the Pentagon, it was really characterized as limited in scope. It sounds like you believe those early hour descriptions are going to turn out to be false.

SEN. KAINE: I do. The- the War Powers resolution says that a member of Congress can challenge the President, if the President initiates hostilities against a foreign nation. Doesn't use the- even though the title is War Powers resolution, the statute says if you initiate hostilities without congressional authorization, even a single member of the House or Senate can force a vote on the Senate floor. There is no doubt that the US sending this massive set of Tomahawk missiles and B-2 bombers and bunker busters on three Iranian nuclear sites is hostilities. Now, again, some in the Senate may say this is great and we want to vote for it. I happen to think that getting into a third offensive war in the Middle East in the last 25 years is absolutely reckless and foolish, and I'm going to be doing everything I can to convince my colleagues of that I may or may not succeed, but Congress should have the debate and vote on this before we escalate the risk to American troops, which this action has done.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We know that prior to this action, Northern Command had already directed additional security measures on all U.S. military installations. You've got a lot of military installations in Virginia. What do you know about the threat to the homeland at this point?

SEN. TIM KAINE: We're going to have a briefing Tuesday, Margaret, and I'll learn more then, but what I do know, I also have a lot of Virginians deployed in the Middle East. There are about 40,000 U.S. troops deployed all over the Middle East, sailors on Navy ships in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, folks in land bases in Syria and Iraq, and yes, this action dramatically raises the risk to them. And the question is, for what? If the Iranian nuclear program – Vice President Vance says it's a war against their nuclear program. Of course, we had curtailed that diplomatically a few years ago until Donald Trump tore up the diplomatic deal. That even if you needed to wage war, when the Israeli Foreign Minister is saying we've set the nuclear program back at least two or three years, why launch this strike escalating risk to Americans and American troops over the weekend with no real discussion with Congress? No real debate before the American public? I don't want to be lied into another war in the way we were with Iraq in 2002.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor DeSantis of Florida was greeting passengers in his state who had boarded a Florida chartered flight from Israel to his state evacuating Americans. It was on Saturday that the U.S. ambassador first made public some of the details for Americans on how to get out of the country if they wanted to. The airspace is closed. What do you know in that foreign relations capacity about the security of our personnel in diplomatic posts, but also Americans who just want to get home and get back to safety?

SEN. KAINE: We need to do everything we can, Margaret, to facilitate Americans wanting to return home from anywhere in the region. From Israel, where you know these these attacks from Iran pose serious risk to civilian lives, other countries in the region who feel at risk, we should do everything possible to bring them back. And I do suspect that the briefing that the entire Senate is going to get Tuesday is not only going to be about the military side of this, but how we are protecting our personnel in the region. President Trump started to voluntarily remove some U.S. personnel, State Department, USAID and other agencies from the region a couple of weeks ago. Not a mandatory evacuation, but the pace of voluntary departures was was picking up because we could see that President Trump was merging closer and closer and closer to violating what he told the American public and getting into another war in the Middle East.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Kaine, thank you for joining us this morning.